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David Herdson selected to stand in Wakefield – politicalbetting.com

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  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    algarkirk said:

    Sean_F said:

    Heathener said:

    I've lived through two sea changes in UK political life: 1979 and 1997.

    I am certain we are now experiencing the third.

    Really? Didn’t build up to 1992 look like sea change to you at the time r, whilst in late 70’s it looked like Labour could even survive for much that build up?

    This is 1992 saying hello! Yet again. 😆

    Both Labour 79 and Tory’s 97 both had no majority, let along a whopping one from most previous election.
    The sea change was in 2008-09.
    The example from 2010 is government had working majority from previous election, despite polls and seat projectors on their side, the government incumbency held up and the opposition failed to get majority on the night could only get existing PM out with a coalition.
    2010 was a change in government, but while I was happy to see Labour out of power I'm not sure it was a sea change, which is why we ended up with a Hung Parliament.

    To hold up 1979 and 2010 as the only sea changes in our politics in that time period, just because they're the only times the parties in Downing Street changed is overly simplistic.

    2016-19 is surely a far bigger sea change in our politics than 2010 was.
    Sea changes (h/t Shakespeare) can be argued for almost any moment. But if we are going through one now, it's a long one. To identify a moment of sea change in UK politics it seems to me that Brexit night 2016 was the most recent, and there is no doubt we are still living out the consequences.

    Two of the things to work out are: That Brexit v Remain split the centre ground of politics in a new way, and both sides are still in denial that both Remain and Brexit were and are centrist policies. (A vote of 16m v 17m cannot be about extremes in UK politics).

    Second thing to work out, always obvious but ignored, is that where a western country stands in relation to NATO matters in the long run much more than the EU. Ask the Ukrainians, Swedes and Finns.

    In wider politics there is a more recent sea change: the day Russia invaded Ukraine.



    The latter is arguably the biggest change in international politics since 11/9/01.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    I said before this kicked off that the scenario Russia was worried about was Croatia, who were able to retake Serb-occupied Croatia after a period of Western military assistance and training.

    That looks more likely to me than an indefinite stalemate.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    I've just got £10 on at 130/1 with Ladbrokes

    Had a dabble, too.
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.

    At some point, even the Ukrainians are going to get exhausted. They will not "cede" territory de jure, but de facto it will happen. Just as Russia cannot now take over the whole of Ukraine, as much as we'd wish it otherwise the reality is also that the Ukrainians cannot win it all back either. It seems to me that what's being fought over now is where the ceasefire line will be on land and on the Black Sea.

    The Ukrainians are quite possibly gaining military power and expertise faster than they're losing it, while for Russia the opposite is true.

    So long as the West continues to back Ukraine and supply it weaponry and ammunitions why would they get exhausted?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.

    At some point, even the Ukrainians are going to get exhausted. They will not "cede" territory de jure, but de facto it will happen. Just as Russia cannot now take over the whole of Ukraine, as much as we'd wish it otherwise the reality is also that the Ukrainians cannot win it all back either. It seems to me that what's being fought over now is where the ceasefire line will be on land and on the Black Sea.

    It is an interesting question - modern war runs on more on weapons than lives. The West can afford the current (or higher levels) of military support indefinitely.

    The sanctions are an interesting question - how much pressure is there to lift them now? How much will there ever be, now?

    The longer the sanction go on, the more adaption to the new status quo occurs. There will be an increasing section of society, in the West, that benefits from being the substitute for integration with the Russian economy. A voice against actions being lifted.....

    If the Russians cut off gas to Poland, then will the *Poles* ever want it to be turned back on?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    Russia wants to reduce the conversation to only two options. Either they get what they want, or there is nuclear war.

    Obviously it's in their interests for us to believe that, and acquiesce, but it's not credible. They aren't going to start a nuclear war over the Donbas.
    Unless they do. What is "credible" to you or me is not a particularly strong test for state sponsored atrocity. Mao's and Stalin's famines and the Armenian genocide and the Shoar and the killing fields and Rwanda are utterly incredible. they happened.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    It depends also on Putin getting pushed back a bit.
    While he's taking ground, he's not negotiating.

    If we want this ending sooner rather than later, the best chance is to supply Ukraine with sufficient weapons to do that pushing.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.

    At some point, even the Ukrainians are going to get exhausted. They will not "cede" territory de jure, but de facto it will happen. Just as Russia cannot now take over the whole of Ukraine, as much as we'd wish it otherwise the reality is also that the Ukrainians cannot win it all back either. It seems to me that what's being fought over now is where the ceasefire line will be on land and on the Black Sea.

    Even if we end up with some sort of horrible stalemate, with Zelensky reluctantly accepting occupied territories for now, he doesn’t have to power to get rid of the Western sanctions against Russia - that remains the power of those who imposed them, and they’re unlikely to be going anywhere while Russia occupies any Ukranian land.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    'We' stayed in South Korea for rather longer.
    That didn't work out too badly in the end.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    You are assuming that the generals in question are

    - Rational (from your point of view)
    - Will not be worried that the next government will execute them as scapegoats anyway. "We have avenged the Treason against Our Glorious President Putin. Now to the peace talks, since the traitors lost us the war."
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited April 2022

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    With caveat of 'very uncertain, nobody knows, only a fool etc' I see 2 ways it go in the short term. Talking about the Ukraine war here not the aftermath of it.

    Russia consolidates limited territorial gains and Putin pronounces this as VICTORY. He says these were always the objectives, never planned on more, mission accomplished. World not fooled but much of his own public are.

    or -

    Putin looks at things, sees a humiliation he can't live with, and decides to kick the table over. Does something like action the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, hoping this will change the situation in his favour.

    I think the first of these is more likely.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257

    I've just got £10 on at 130/1 with Ladbrokes

    Nice trading potential on that in combination with the exchanges, if - say - you could find a sucker to back at ~42 on Smarkets :tongue:

    (OGH will no doubt win his long-odds by-election bets as is his habit and show me to be the sucker - again!)
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,669
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    Russia wants to reduce the conversation to only two options. Either they get what they want, or there is nuclear war.

    Obviously it's in their interests for us to believe that, and acquiesce, but it's not credible. They aren't going to start a nuclear war over the Donbas.
    Unless they do. What is "credible" to you or me is not a particularly strong test for state sponsored atrocity. Mao's and Stalin's famines and the Armenian genocide and the Shoar and the killing fields and Rwanda are utterly incredible. they happened.
    Also just suppose the one person who can decide this knows he is terminally ill?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    You are assuming that the generals in question are

    - Rational (from your point of view)
    - Will not be worried that the next government will execute them as scapegoats anyway. "We have avenged the Treason against Our Glorious President Putin. Now to the peace talks, since the traitors lost us the war."
    I thought the Wagner Group was Putin's private army, his Praetorian Guards. Let's get as many into the Ukrainian killing fields as possible.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
  • kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    With caveat of 'very uncertain, nobody knows, only a fool etc' I see 2 ways it go in the short term. Talking about the Ukraine war here not the aftermath of it.

    Russia consolidates limited territorial gains and Putin pronounces this as VICTORY. He says these were always the objectives, never planned on more, mission accomplished. World not fooled but much of his own public are.

    or -

    Putin looks at things, sees a humiliation he can't live with, and decides to kick the table over. Does something like action the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, hoping this will change the situation in his favour.

    I think the first of these is more likely.
    3) Powerful Russians see a humiliation and Putin has an 'accident', Russia retreats back to their own borders.
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    With caveat of 'very uncertain, nobody knows, only a fool etc' I see 2 ways it go in the short term. Talking about the Ukraine war here not the aftermath of it.

    Russia consolidates limited territorial gains and Putin pronounces this as VICTORY. He says these were always the objectives, never planned on more, mission accomplished. World not fooled but much of his own public are.

    or -

    Putin looks at things, sees a humiliation he can't live with, and decides to kick the table over. Does something like action the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, hoping this will change the situation in his favour.

    I think the first of these is more likely.
    3) Powerful Russians see a humiliation and Putin has an 'accident', Russia retreats back to their own borders.
    With or without Putin, Russia's going to be a problem for the next few decades at least.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
    edited April 2022

    I've just got £10 on at 130/1 with Ladbrokes

    Are these bets with the head, or excitement it’s “PB Dave”? 🙂

    I certainly expect the odds to come in from there, as Yorkshire Party is a great place for disgruntled one nation Tory vote.

    Either way, it’s a great platform for someone with “ Brexit has become for the Conservatives what nationalisation is for the Corbynite Labour Party: an end in itself, to be achieved irrespective of cost and with any practical benefits as an incidental bonus. It is a revolutionary ideology unworthy of the Conservative Party, not least because it fails to consider the likely counter-productive political and social consequences of delivering Brexit ” message.

    My dad could have written that, though he’s still in the party.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    You mean, only poor countries hate us. Phew.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited April 2022
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    'We' stayed in South Korea for rather longer.
    That didn't work out too badly in the end.
    Well that certainly did involve NATO (UN) forces fighting on the ground. For three years. With millions of casualties. And the North Korean regime still in place. Is that what you have in mind?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    Russia wants to reduce the conversation to only two options. Either they get what they want, or there is nuclear war.

    Obviously it's in their interests for us to believe that, and acquiesce, but it's not credible. They aren't going to start a nuclear war over the Donbas.
    Unless they do. What is "credible" to you or me is not a particularly strong test for state sponsored atrocity. Mao's and Stalin's famines and the Armenian genocide and the Shoar and the killing fields and Rwanda are utterly incredible. they happened.
    Let's look at the evidence then.

    1. Russia lost the battle of Kyiv. Its response was to retreat and it did not nuke Kyiv.
    2. Russia has declared victory in Mariupol in preference to storming the tunnels underneath the Azovstal plant. They haven't turned to chemical weapons as a means to defeat the defenders.

    This shows that there are real and practical limits to the barbarity that Russia is prepared to unleash, notwithstanding the war crimes committed elsewhere.

    The most likely cause of this limit is fear of the Western response. This will stay their hand when Ukraine liberates the Donbas. However, if St Petersburg or Moscow was threatened then the greater fear of the end of the regime would assert itself.

    The off-ramp we offer to Putin is that we respect the sovereignty of the internationally recognised borders of Russia. No march on Moscow, no attempt to seize the Russian Black Sea coast, etc.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    You mean, only poor countries hate us. Phew.
    Poor countries don't matter as much as successful countries, what a shocker.

    Though how many poor countries ostracised the UK and put us under sanctions or bans as a result of the Iraq War? Which ones?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,343

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    Boiled down to basics NATO has exactly one supreme power, which it has used now with success for 70 years. That is the power to say to any other power on the planet: If you do X you take on the whole of NATOs power, including its nuclear ones.

    The invasion of Ukraine suggests two things: That at some point, however far ahead, NATO's one supreme power will be tested out by someone.

    And secondly, with hindsight, it is obvious that the Russian threat to invade Ukraine was the moment, now gone, to have used that power and take the risk. Russia would not have invaded.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    With caveat of 'very uncertain, nobody knows, only a fool etc' I see 2 ways it could go in the short term. Talking about the Ukraine war here not the aftermath of it.

    Russia consolidates limited territorial gains and Putin pronounces this as VICTORY. He says these were always the objectives, never planned on more, mission accomplished. World not fooled but much of his own public are.

    or -

    Putin looks at things, sees a humiliation he can't live with, and decides to kick the table over. Does something like action the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, hoping this will change the situation in his favour.

    I think the first of these is more likely.
    3) Powerful Russians see a humiliation and Putin has an 'accident', Russia retreats back to their own borders.
    Yes, I was just saying what I think the 2 most likely short term developments are. There are lots of other possibilities eg this one.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    You mean, only poor countries hate us. Phew.
    Poor countries don't matter as much as successful countries, what a shocker.

    Though how many poor countries ostracised the UK and put us under sanctions or bans as a result of the Iraq War? Which ones?
    It's a rich man's sport, mate.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    edited April 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    You mean, only poor countries hate us. Phew.
    Poor countries don't matter as much as successful countries, what a shocker.

    Though how many poor countries ostracised the UK and put us under sanctions or bans as a result of the Iraq War? Which ones?
    It's a rich man's sport, mate.
    So none, then?
  • kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.
    With caveat of 'very uncertain, nobody knows, only a fool etc' I see 2 ways it could go in the short term. Talking about the Ukraine war here not the aftermath of it.

    Russia consolidates limited territorial gains and Putin pronounces this as VICTORY. He says these were always the objectives, never planned on more, mission accomplished. World not fooled but much of his own public are.

    or -

    Putin looks at things, sees a humiliation he can't live with, and decides to kick the table over. Does something like action the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, hoping this will change the situation in his favour.

    I think the first of these is more likely.
    3) Powerful Russians see a humiliation and Putin has an 'accident', Russia retreats back to their own borders.
    Yes, I was just saying what I think the 2 most likely short term developments are. There are lots of other possibilities eg this one.
    I think that 3 is the most likely development, more likely than your 2nd one by far.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.

    At some point, even the Ukrainians are going to get exhausted. They will not "cede" territory de jure, but de facto it will happen. Just as Russia cannot now take over the whole of Ukraine, as much as we'd wish it otherwise the reality is also that the Ukrainians cannot win it all back either. It seems to me that what's being fought over now is where the ceasefire line will be on land and on the Black Sea.

    Even if we end up with some sort of horrible stalemate, with Zelensky reluctantly accepting occupied territories for now, he doesn’t have to power to get rid of the Western sanctions against Russia - that remains the power of those who imposed them, and they’re unlikely to be going anywhere while Russia occupies any Ukranian land.

    For sure. Hence the North and South Korea comparison. Free Ukraine is going to look, feel and be a lot more prosperous and democratic than occupied Ukraine and the whole of Russia.

  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
    And the stocks for smoggies stealing our daffodils!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
  • malcolmg said:

    Meanwhile, in Caledonia...

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-candidate-suggests-opponents-independence-26799161

    "An SNP election candidate has suggested that opponents of independence are "negative" and "more likely to suffer from degenerative brain diseases" as a result."

    I think I'll leave it like that.

    He is the 2nd SNP candidate alphabetically in a 3 member ward so he is probably unlikely to get elected now and the ward will probably be 1 SNP 1 Con 1 Lab.
    His only mistake was assuming they had enough brain cells or backbone to be able to catch a disease.
    Lots of pretendy independence supporters in the SNP at present and that is just the leadership gravy train mob.
    Who will you be voting for at the Scottish local elections (considering the lack of ALBA candidates) or will you spoil your ballot or even vote Conservative? I see Douglas Ross is working hard to win your vote: https://twitter.com/BBCScotNine/status/1519041454613610498.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    The way most by-elections are won is that one party establishes themself in the campaign as the main opposition in the seat to the incumbent, and voters flock to that opposition to give the incumbent a kicking.

    The big risk for Labour is that Herdson, and the Yorkshire Party, are capable of seizing that mantle. The Labour campaign needs to get a move on, it needs a candidate, and it needs to make sure it is seen as the opposition to the Tories in Wakefield.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    I don't know that Topping is claiming to have much relevant experience when it comes to "nuclear firing protocols". I don't think there are many people in the world who could, given we're talking about the feasibility of the order being given and carried out, not just the mechanics of how it should happen.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    'We' stayed in South Korea for rather longer.
    That didn't work out too badly in the end.
    Well that certainly did involve NATO (UN) forces fighting on the ground. For three years. With millions of casualties. And the North Korean regime still in place. Is that what you have in mind?
    No - we were talking about post ceasefire.

    Korea was a civil war; this is an invasion. The two things aren't directly comparable.
    Russia doesn't have the capacity for the type of human wave attacks of the Korean war, they have no significant Ukrainian allies, and it's Russia rather than the US which is bombing indiscriminately (and relatively ineffectually).

    As I said upthread, the only means we have end this more quickly (short of forcing Ukraine to surrender) is give Ukraine the means to stop and reverse the Russia invasion. There's no certainty that will work, but it looks better than any of the alternatives.
  • Andy_JS said:

    Scott_xP said:

    EXCLUSIVE: Labour has built up a 27-point lead over the Tories in London ahead of the town hall elections on May 5, a new poll reveals on Wednesday. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-elections-may-2022-labour-lead-conservatives-poll-b996500.html https://twitter.com/nicholascecil/status/1519208249622507521/photo/1

    That's a 5% swing since 2018 I think.
    A 6% swing. I don't think Labour will do quite that well. Realistically I think they should be looking to achieve a 4% swing. Something like Lab 48% Con 25%.

    I can't see the Tories getting less than 25%.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401
    "Don't follow the herd - vote Herdson!"
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
    And the stocks for smoggies stealing our daffodils!
    Actually, serious question (I suspect you are reading this Dave Herdson) is Yorkshire Party policy that Middlesbrough is part of Yorkshire or not? What borders do the party recognise?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959

    Sandpit said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.

    At some point, even the Ukrainians are going to get exhausted. They will not "cede" territory de jure, but de facto it will happen. Just as Russia cannot now take over the whole of Ukraine, as much as we'd wish it otherwise the reality is also that the Ukrainians cannot win it all back either. It seems to me that what's being fought over now is where the ceasefire line will be on land and on the Black Sea.

    Even if we end up with some sort of horrible stalemate, with Zelensky reluctantly accepting occupied territories for now, he doesn’t have to power to get rid of the Western sanctions against Russia - that remains the power of those who imposed them, and they’re unlikely to be going anywhere while Russia occupies any Ukranian land.

    For sure. Hence the North and South Korea comparison. Free Ukraine is going to look, feel and be a lot more prosperous and democratic than occupied Ukraine and the whole of Russia.

    Trouble is, that just fuels Russia's envious greed all the more.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise. When you said "international" you did mean "international" didn't you?

    As to sanctions none were imposed as far as I am aware. I'm not sure how many US yak wranglers were sent to the annual games in Xinjiang, that said.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
    Yes Bart.

    Always with the metaphors. Bluffing standardly involves pretending to have stuff which you haven't.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
  • TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise. When you said "international" you did mean "international" didn't you?

    As to sanctions none were imposed as far as I am aware. I'm not sure how many US yak wranglers were sent to the annual games in Xinjiang, that said.
    That they opposed the war didn't make us pariahs, it just meant they had a disagreement. They tutted and left us to our own business.

    Russia actually are being made pariahs.

    Do you genuinely not understand the difference?
  • IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
    Yes Bart.

    Always with the metaphors. Bluffing standardly involves pretending to have stuff which you haven't.
    No it doesn't, bluffing also involves pretending you'll do something that you won't.

    What reason do we have to take the Russians at their word? They're known liars, their word was that they wouldn't invade Ukraine a few months ago.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Thought for the day

    “This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”

    Walter Lippmann, 1961
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    edited April 2022
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise....
    As did a large part of the UK electorate.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,401

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
    As a sleeper agent from the North East I am very wary of the knock on the door from the Yorkshire Stasi.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited April 2022
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise. When you said "international" you did mean "international" didn't you?

    As to sanctions none were imposed as far as I am aware. I'm not sure how many US yak wranglers were sent to the annual games in Xinjiang, that said.
    That they opposed the war didn't make us pariahs, it just meant they had a disagreement. They tutted and left us to our own business.

    Russia actually are being made pariahs.

    Do you genuinely not understand the difference?
    I understand that there are countries which will not discriminate against Russia (save perhaps on negotiating preferential commercial terms for its output) and that might maintain or dent only slightly Russia's economic position. To say nothing of Germany (and Poland if they can get to a Bureau de Change).
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise....
    As did a large part of the UK electorate.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
    I don't think we can include them in the "international" condemnation.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
    Yes Bart.

    Always with the metaphors. Bluffing standardly involves pretending to have stuff which you haven't.
    No it doesn't, bluffing also involves pretending you'll do something that you won't.

    What reason do we have to take the Russians at their word? They're known liars, their word was that they wouldn't invade Ukraine a few months ago.
    Your position is easily summarised and of course are (it turns out especially on PB) very popular.

    Events will turn out as I say because I want them to. Russia will be defeated and pushed back to their borders; Putin will be taken out by some dissatisfied Kremliners; there will be no nuclear escalation; the West will triumph because it is the West.

    Wholly understandable although I would say it is a very childish view. You don't want to consider a sequence of events that conflict with your preferred one. I totally get it. It's a total mindfuck.

    Others of us are more open-minded, dare I say less scared of the contemplation of other possible outcomes.
  • Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons.
    Precisely, this is what some people don't seem to understand.

    Wars are won or lost via logistics. Russia's logistics are royally fucked and they're running out of supplies and can't replace them easily, they don't have self-sufficiency on the electronics etc that they require.

    Ukraine's logistics have never been better, they've got the full backing of NATO and are able to replenish their equipment better than anyone would have guessed months ago.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
    By some accounts they have lost 4% of their MBT capability.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise....
    As did a large part of the UK electorate.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
    I don't think we can include them in the "international" condemnation.
    I think there's an argument for that.
    According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of 15 and 16 February...
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    O/t, but I've just driven through a couple of quite heavily inhabited parts of the Borough of Colchester, where local elections take place a week tomorrow and saw no sign of any electoral activity.
    No posters, either in windows or on trees, lamp-posts etc.
  • TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
    Yes Bart.

    Always with the metaphors. Bluffing standardly involves pretending to have stuff which you haven't.
    No it doesn't, bluffing also involves pretending you'll do something that you won't.

    What reason do we have to take the Russians at their word? They're known liars, their word was that they wouldn't invade Ukraine a few months ago.
    Your position is easily summarised and of course are (it turns out especially on PB) very popular.

    Events will turn out as I say because I want them to. Russia will be defeated and pushed back to their borders; Putin will be taken out by some dissatisfied Kremliners; there will be no nuclear escalation; the West will triumph because it is the West.

    Wholly understandable although I would say it is a very childish view. You don't want to consider a sequence of events that conflict with your preferred one. I totally get it. It's a total mindfuck.

    Others of us are more open-minded, dare I say less scared of the contemplation of other possible outcomes.
    No, other options are possible, they're just not remotely likely.

    Russia is fucked, they don't have the money, they don't have the electronics, they don't have the supplies, they don't have the trade, they don't have the logistics and they've already been forced to retreat once already.

    Ukraine has the full backing of the developed world.

    Russia thought they would win this war. They won't. That is by far the most probable outcome, though other outcomes are possible they're not likely and there's good reason for that.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    O/t, but I've just driven through a couple of quite heavily inhabited parts of the Borough of Colchester, where local elections take place a week tomorrow and saw no sign of any electoral activity.
    No posters, either in windows or on trees, lamp-posts etc.

    Given only about a third of voters turn out in local elections you rarely get any signs of election fever unless in the most hotly contested and marginal wards

    Only the most diehard supporters tend to display posters
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    You would have thought so. It depends upon what Zelensky thinks is acceptable Ukraine territory to cede. If none then the war will continue for some time; if as you state then the deal will be sooner.
    And how long will Putin's benefactors in Russia be prepared to be pariahs on the global stage for a futile war?
    No idea. We stayed in Iraq for 18 years. That was pretty futile.
    Quite a few big differences though.

    We had Iraq occupied, we weren't struggling to merely get across the border fighting village by village.
    We took the capital swiftly.
    The war didn't make us international pariahs and didn't lead to sanctions that crippled our economy.
    What a parochial view. Of course it made us international pariahs. There are plenty of countries (and global GDP), meanwhile, that do not think of Russia as a global pariah.

    Oh and we did actually lose that war. Stayed 18 years, though, if we are talking about winning and losing.
    What ridiculous garbage, some idiots online and marching on the streets may have complained but it absolutely did not make us international pariahs. What sanctions were we under? What competitions were our athletes banned from? What multinationals wouldn't trade with us?

    Russians actually are pariahs, unable to even get far past the border let alone into the capital, struggling to pay their own bills and completely ostracised from the global economy and even sports. They are genuine pariahs and it is completely fatuitous to contrast the two situations.
    55 countries opposed the Iraq war, so google tells me, including our arch enemy, the EU. China, India and Russia also on the list to no great surprise. When you said "international" you did mean "international" didn't you?

    As to sanctions none were imposed as far as I am aware. I'm not sure how many US yak wranglers were sent to the annual games in Xinjiang, that said.
    That they opposed the war didn't make us pariahs, it just meant they had a disagreement. They tutted and left us to our own business.

    Russia actually are being made pariahs.

    Do you genuinely not understand the difference?
    I understand that there are countries which will not discriminate against Russia (save perhaps on negotiating preferential commercial terms for its output) and that might maintain or dent only slightly Russia's economic position. To say nothing of Germany (and Poland if they can get to a Bureau de Change).
    The economic costs of the war for Russia are massively more significant to them than were the massive costs of the Iraq debacle to the US, though.

    And they might not be looking quite at a North Korean style future under a continuing Putin (or continuity Putin style) regime, but it will not be a particularly attractive one.
    Any postwar deal which is acceptable to Ukraine/Europe/the US is unlikely to be very attractive for Russia, even if it's preferable to carrying on the war.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    At one time, some years ago, I used to attend professional conferences as one of the representatives of Essex.The difference in the attention given to the representatives from Northern Island.... separate Society, effectively a semi(at least)-independent state and my group was noticeable, although at, at the time having populations of 1.5 million was noticeable.
    And given the status of the Norn reps, understandable.
    Estonia, for example, is a bit smaller, too.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Southam Observer - at some point even the Ukrainians are going to be exhausted.

    Well yes at some point. But they haven't even launched a counter offensive yet! The reality of this war is that one country is engaging in mass mobilisation in order to win and the other..... isn't. That could change but there is no sign of it at the moment. I understand the desire to end the war as soon as possible. But is that because we think it would be best for the Ukrainians or best for us?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    The nuclear factor is also a constraint on Russian action.

    The Russian government can lie to us, they can lie to their own people, they can lie to one another, but they cannot lie to themselves. They know they have had the shit beaten out of them by Ukraine's armed forces. They know Western weapons are making a mockery of Russia's numerical advantage. They know that the West generally has a better idea of what's going on on the ground than they do. Unless the Russian government and military is extremely naive they ought to be questioning every assumption they have ever made in military planning for the last few decades. I see no way Russia could conclude that they are in a strong position even in the sphere of strategic nuclear weapons.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    The Bayraktar drones are not invulnerable.

    https://twitter.com/200_zoka/status/1519232250205847553
    This morning TB2 shot down over Kursk

    Though that's quite some way into Russian territory, assuming the claim is true.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons.
    Precisely, this is what some people don't seem to understand.

    Wars are won or lost via logistics. Russia's logistics are royally fucked and they're running out of supplies and can't replace them easily, they don't have self-sufficiency on the electronics etc that they require.

    Ukraine's logistics have never been better, they've got the full backing of NATO and are able to replenish their equipment better than anyone would have guessed months ago.
    And what you don't understand is the following:

    “This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”

    Walter Lippmann, 1961

    and if that sounds like ancient history, Russia declared in 2020 that it would use nukes in case of

    – "the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.

    To which I am sure your response will be I B Roberts wouldn't see any outcome as threatening Russia's existence, and obviously Russians are a load of little B Robertses who think exactly as I do.

    Now, OK, it is much more likely than not that Russia will not go nuclear but if good taste permitted I'd have a flutter at anything over 33/1 on a tactical nuke being used this year in Ukraine. And here we are discussing with interest a 130/1 shot in a by election. Your argument that odds against = not worth discussion is at odds (ha!) with the core principles of the site.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited April 2022

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
    And the stocks for smoggies stealing our daffodils!
    Actually, serious question (I suspect you are reading this Dave Herdson) is Yorkshire Party policy that Middlesbrough is part of Yorkshire or not? What borders do the party recognise?
    Yes, I am reading.

    There's actually no official policy on that at the moment, though I did a draft policy which will be going to the Executive Committee when it has less pressing matters, which touches on that issue, and if adopted would push for two referendums (or, strictly, two types of referendum) on establishing a Yorkshire Regional Parliament.

    One would be covering the whole of the existing N/W/S Yorks, plus York, Hull and E Riding councils. That would be the core vote on whether or not to establish the parliament. In addition, the 'lost territories' of Middlesbrough, Saddleworth etc could hold local referendums on whether they wanted to the parliament to cover their area, if it's established. The decision on whether to hold these second types of referendum would be triggered by either a decision of the local council or a petition reaching a trigger level within that authority.

    So the answer is that emotionally, yes, we do see Middlesbrough as part of Yorkshire, or at least part of the wider Yorkshire family, but ultimately the question on a political level comes down to whether the people there do.
    Bringing Middlesbrough back in to Yorkshire??

    I’m sorry I couldn’t vote for that.

    Keep the Smoggies out!

    #TedHeathWasAVisionary
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    HYUFD said:

    O/t, but I've just driven through a couple of quite heavily inhabited parts of the Borough of Colchester, where local elections take place a week tomorrow and saw no sign of any electoral activity.
    No posters, either in windows or on trees, lamp-posts etc.

    Given only about a third of voters turn out in local elections you rarely get any signs of election fever unless in the most hotly contested and marginal wards

    Only the most diehard supporters tend to display posters
    While I agree, as one who was involved in many local elections from about 1960-1985, I was a little surprised to see nothing at all.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,089
    algarkirk said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    Boiled down to basics NATO has exactly one supreme power, which it has used now with success for 70 years. That is the power to say to any other power on the planet: If you do X you take on the whole of NATOs power, including its nuclear ones.

    The invasion of Ukraine suggests two things: That at some point, however far ahead, NATO's one supreme power will be tested out by someone.

    And secondly, with hindsight, it is obvious that the Russian threat to invade Ukraine was the moment, now gone, to have used that power and take the risk. Russia would not have invaded.

    But Ukraine was not in NATO. That is precisely the point of NATO - thus far and no further.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    HYUFD said:

    O/t, but I've just driven through a couple of quite heavily inhabited parts of the Borough of Colchester, where local elections take place a week tomorrow and saw no sign of any electoral activity.
    No posters, either in windows or on trees, lamp-posts etc.

    Given only about a third of voters turn out in local elections you rarely get any signs of election fever unless in the most hotly contested and marginal wards

    Only the most diehard supporters tend to display posters
    I take it you're displaying dozens then? :)
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    glw said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    The nuclear factor is also a constraint on Russian action.

    The Russian government can lie to us, they can lie to their own people, they can lie to one another, but they cannot lie to themselves. They know they have had the shit beaten out of them by Ukraine's armed forces. They know Western weapons are making a mockery of Russia's numerical advantage. They know that the West generally has a better idea of what's going on on the ground than they do. Unless the Russian government and military is extremely naive they ought to be questioning every assumption they have ever made in military planning for the last few decades. I see no way Russia could conclude that they are in a strong position even in the sphere of strategic nuclear weapons.
    Why not? They were obv lying to themselves about their conventional capability until 9 weeks ago.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Just to add no-one can predict how a Ukrainian counter offensive will go. If this war has taught us anything it's that attacking against well prepared defenses is very difficult. They've certainly earned the right to try.
  • NorthofStokeNorthofStoke Posts: 1,758

    TOPPING said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    TOPPING said:

    pm215 said:

    Why do people persist with the myth that at some point a deal will be done with Russia?

    What deal was done with Argentina after the Falklands War?
    What deal was done with the Axis powers after WWII?

    Did Argentina have nuclear weapons?
    Did WW2 Germany have nuclear weapons?

    That's why a lot of people think things will end up coming to some kind of accommodation. That might be wrong, but the nuclear factor is a definite constraint on NATO action that makes "deal" a plausible belief at least. (If this was against a purely conventionally-armed opponent then I'd agree with you.)
    Many on here believe that Tom Cruise will swoop in to defeat the Red Peril in aerial combat and we can all walk off into the sunset. They really do believe it is some kind of Hollywood film, as @Dura noted so appositely yesterday.

    Nuclear weapons? Well didn't we send Bruce Willis on a daredevil mission to defeat those or something in one of the Die Hards?
    Its not a Hollywood film, its a war, and that means sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine who are doing the fighting, and putting pressure on Russia so they lose the war.

    It does not require singing Kumbayah or Apprentice style deal making.
    I wish I was as certain about anything as you are about everything. What has Russia got that neither Hitler nor Galtieri had? What would Hitler have done if he had them? Clue: what does the V in V1 and V2 stand for?
    What makes you think Galtieri would have used nuclear weapons?

    Hitler ended up with Germany occupied and partitioned, nobody is proposing that for Russia. Russia losing the war doesn't mean Russia getting occupied and partitioned, it means Russia pulling back to their own borders and that is not something worth them committing suicide over.

    If Putin were to order a nuclear strike over Ukraine then the chances are someone close to him would think that they don't want their own family and world destroyed by a nuclear retaliation and put a bullet into him.

    Nuclear weapons aren't as significant as you make out to this conflict. Not remotely.
    That is so spectacularly wrong it's like saying the Queen has no bearing on this game of chess because, look, we are 20 moves in and she hasn't moved. Or the presence of the ace of trumps in dummy has been irrelevant cos it hasn't been played yet.

    I have no idea in detail what the protocol is for Russia or anyone else to launch a nuke is, but I am bloody certain it is very carefully designed from the ground up to accommodate the fact that things are going to be a tiny bit fraught, it's not a question of could you ask Ivan to get me a cup of tea from the samovar and press the big red button on the way. I would think that security round Putin would be intense and that for every person with a role to play you'd have a dozen to shoot that person if he didn't fulfill it
    Absolutely the security round Putin is going to be as intense as the Praetorian Guards were around Roman Emperors.

    There is a lesson from history there that you might want to think about ...
    That was then, this is now. what Russian leader, and what 20-21st century leader of anywhere, has been taken out by the palace guard? In africa it tends to be the regular army

    Why this should be is an interesting Q I hadn't thought of before and will do, but whatever the reason it is, literally, ancient history.
    The regular army are the modern day Praetorian Guard though.

    If Russia's generals turn against Putin en masse then Putin will be dead and the war over in pretty swift order.

    That is far more likely than nuclear weapons firing, because all those generals don't want themselves and all their family and loved ones dead in a nuclear attack any more than you do.
    If, if, if. Yet again, you go for the simple and pleasing narrative at the expense of the likely truth. Again, when you set up a nuclear firing protocol you rather factor in the chances of individuals being less than 100% onside, and you compensate (as confirmed by military man @TOPPING). Why would you think anything else would be the case? Your senior nomenklatura and families are in bunkers miles away and the junior ones do what they are told. And then you've got your nuclear subs who are thousands of miles away and safe as houses, with political officers on board and not with Sean Connery in command.
    The likely truth is not that we will end up with nuclear weapons firing on both sides, that is paranoia.

    Russia has already retreated once. They can and likely will do so a second time.
    I just give up. Nuclear war does not happen on a monthly basis, therefore thinking about it when a nuclear power is explicitly threatening it, is paranoia?
    Thinking about it isn't paranoia.

    Thinking it is likely is.

    The far more likely truth is that the Russians are lying. We can, should and are calling their bluff.
    Yes Bart.

    Always with the metaphors. Bluffing standardly involves pretending to have stuff which you haven't.
    No it doesn't, bluffing also involves pretending you'll do something that you won't.

    What reason do we have to take the Russians at their word? They're known liars, their word was that they wouldn't invade Ukraine a few months ago.
    Your position is easily summarised and of course are (it turns out especially on PB) very popular.

    Events will turn out as I say because I want them to. Russia will be defeated and pushed back to their borders; Putin will be taken out by some dissatisfied Kremliners; there will be no nuclear escalation; the West will triumph because it is the West.

    Wholly understandable although I would say it is a very childish view. You don't want to consider a sequence of events that conflict with your preferred one. I totally get it. It's a total mindfuck.

    Others of us are more open-minded, dare I say less scared of the contemplation of other possible outcomes.
    No, other options are possible, they're just not remotely likely.

    Russia is fucked, they don't have the money, they don't have the electronics, they don't have the supplies, they don't have the trade, they don't have the logistics and they've already been forced to retreat once already.

    Ukraine has the full backing of the developed world.

    Russia thought they would win this war. They won't. That is by far the most probable outcome, though other outcomes are possible they're not likely and there's good reason for that.
    I agree. There is much less fog of war in this conflict. There are lots of information sources, many biased with some attempts to collate and verify. Even allowing generously for better reporting of Russian loses by Ukrainian sources the Russians have been and are being defeated. Obviously so far. I don't think many realise the depth of the drubbing that has occurred. Huge losses of equipment and lots of their best troops. Not even sure if Putin has a realistic view of his resources TBH.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,624
    TOPPING said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons, and they have limited manufacturing capabilities for these.
    By some accounts they have lost 4% of their MBT capability.
    I've seen it stated that they had 2,800 tanks in actual use, plus 10,000 in storage.

    https://www.csis.org/analysis/will-united-states-run-out-javelins-russia-runs-out-tanks

    etc. etc.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    The irony, of course, is that a strong showing by Mr Herdson may help the Tories.

    Geniune question: is the Yorkshire Party anything other than the unofficial Yorkshire branch of the Tories that gone a bit native? Are their national policies much different?

    I'd have thought they'd take two Tory votes for every one Labour vote tbh.
    Well they’re clearly not the BNP in disguise!

    I assume they’re anti-Brexit as that’s clearly a big issue for David. But other than that, I know little about them.

    If I were Labour, I wouldn’t welcome wildcards like Herdson. Sure, he could get second making it a terrrrrible night for the Tories, but it’s much more important that Labour wins. Having a potential none of the above option like the Lib Dems were in North Shropshire, is not ideal.
    Is this the same Yorkshire Nationalist Party which advocates for patrol gunboats on the Tees, sniper watchtowers on Stanage Edge, and heavily armed border guards in street checkpoints at Todmorden?
    As a sleeper agent from the North East I am very wary of the knock on the door from the Yorkshire Stasi.
    The Yorkshire Stasi are rightly feared for their unique method of torture - droning on about Yorkshire indefinitely.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Leics including Leicester is a million people. I am not suggesting independence, but enough for devolution of many issues. Many counties (such as Devon or Hampshire) have bigger populations, not far off devolved Northern Ireland, and more than several EU member states.

    Real local devolution is a key to the development of left behind areas. Our country is far too over centralised.
    Yeah, no. What you actually want is devolution of spending, and continued centralisation of taxation. Real local devolution would just lead to London and the South East pulling further ahead of the rest of the country.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    IshmaelZ said:

    Thought for the day

    “This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”

    Walter Lippmann, 1961

    That is what we did in the 1980's. The Soviet Union opted against suicide.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited April 2022
    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
    The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!

    The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    TOPPING said:

    Dura_Ace said:



    All in all, to an interested non-expert such as myself, it appeared the Russian military was in the best shape it had been since the fall of the USSR. I have been rapidly converted to the opposite point of view.

    It's important not to judge the "shape" by Western standards. If the British took 10,000+ KIA in a few months on a Jolly Boys Outing then everyone of OF-7 and higher rank all the way up the PM would be gone. In Russia 10,000+ KIA makes the war more popular and Putin's domestic position stronger.

    Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle. They had the 'Fuck Yourself' meme and the stamps, etc. about Snake Island but the actual result is they lost the island (which controls access to the Danube) and are not capable of getting it back.
    "Ukraine repeatedly win the PR battle and lose the actual battle."

    Remind me again how they lost the actual battle for Kyiv?

    571 lost Russian tanks (Oryx independently verified number as of today) suggests the Ukrainians have some very nifty PR kit....
    Ukraine is winning because I saw it on Twitter.

    No one is disputing Ukrainian military action successes - I have no idea as to the authenticity of Stijn and Joost: it shows some blown up armour which I have no reason or wherewithal to believe is not what they say it is.

    Nor that Russian forces are evidently not in Kyiv and wanted to be.

    But do you know how the 571 tanks lost relates to the overall Russian ORBAT? Do you know the overall scheme of the war? Neither do I. I'm looking at a lot of red and pink and white coloured graphs but have no idea what it means or what the endgame is or will be.

    When I pointed out articles which commented upon the excellent Ukraine PR effort I was castigated as a pro-Putin troll (not the worst that's been thrown at me on PB) and pointed towards (yet another) Twitter 30-sec footage of some soldiers running to and fro on a bridge as if to prove, if proof be needed that Russia was on the brink of defeat.

    We just don't know enough about what's going on to make any firm pronouncements still less predictions.

    Apart from mine that a deal will at some stage have to be done.

    A North Korea/South Korea style ceasefire is surely the most likely outcome now. At some stage they'll just stop fighting and start staring at each other across a highly combustible, heavily militarised, disputed border. Free Ukraine will become more westernised and more prosperous; Russia and occupied Ukraine will not.

    Depending on how it's going the US will want the conflict to be quiesced by the winter of 23/24 so it's not an unpredictable factor in the election. Until then they will be content to give Ukraine just enough weapons to keep bleeding Russia out.
    And the rest of us before the end of this year.

    I think it's highly unlikely that there's any desire on the part of the US to keep it going that long, either. The ongoing damage to the world economy is enormous.
    If the Russians carry on taking equipment losses at anything like the current rate, there will barely be a Russian military force by the end of this year - except for ships and the WMDs. They can’t keep sending conscripts into the battle without vehicles and weapons.
    Precisely, this is what some people don't seem to understand.

    Wars are won or lost via logistics. Russia's logistics are royally fucked and they're running out of supplies and can't replace them easily, they don't have self-sufficiency on the electronics etc that they require.

    Ukraine's logistics have never been better, they've got the full backing of NATO and are able to replenish their equipment better than anyone would have guessed months ago.
    And what you don't understand is the following:

    “This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”

    Walter Lippmann, 1961

    and if that sounds like ancient history, Russia declared in 2020 that it would use nukes in case of

    – "the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy”.

    To which I am sure your response will be I B Roberts wouldn't see any outcome as threatening Russia's existence, and obviously Russians are a load of little B Robertses who think exactly as I do.

    Now, OK, it is much more likely than not that Russia will not go nuclear but if good taste permitted I'd have a flutter at anything over 33/1 on a tactical nuke being used this year in Ukraine. And here we are discussing with interest a 130/1 shot in a by election. Your argument that odds against = not worth discussion is at odds (ha!) with the core principles of the site.
    Russia losing the war with Ukraine will not threaten Russia's existence any more than Argentina losing the Falklands War threatened Argentina's existence.

    I never said that odds against = not worth discussion, I said its not likely. Unlikely outcomes are possible, but they remain unlikely and not as you claimed earlier "the likely truth."

    The likely truth is that Russia is lying, just as they were earlier in the year when they claimed they weren't going to invade. Our security services have throughout seemed to have insight into what the Russians were planning before they did it, and that they don't seem bothered about Russia's empty threats is in itself revealing.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Thought for the day

    “This being the nuclear age, it is the paramount rule of international politics that a great nuclear power should not put another great nuclear power in a position where it must choose between suicide and surrender.”

    Walter Lippmann, 1961

    That is what we did in the 1980's. The Soviet Union opted against suicide.
    They surrendered to a military threat?

    Bloody hell, I never realised that. And I was there.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    At a meeting of Tory MPs last night, the chief whip was told by female members that they had recently witnessed a male colleague watching porn in the Commons chamber

    https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/male-conservative-mp-caught-watching-porn-in-the-commons-chamber-by-female-colleagues-1597601
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    .
    Carnyx said:

    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
    The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!

    The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
    The problem with balkanisation of England (as proposed by Prescott and apparently by these people) is that the last two years have clearly shown that England needs a government, so that when a national challenge in a devolved area (like, say, a pandemic) comes along, there are four governments working for the four countries, with a UK government on top doing some co-ordination and little else.

    Balkanising England into regions without having a place for an England government won't solve any problems. Devolve to England first - then if the English parliament wants to further devolve some powers to the regions, that would work much better.
  • HYUFD said:

    O/t, but I've just driven through a couple of quite heavily inhabited parts of the Borough of Colchester, where local elections take place a week tomorrow and saw no sign of any electoral activity.
    No posters, either in windows or on trees, lamp-posts etc.

    Given only about a third of voters turn out in local elections you rarely get any signs of election fever unless in the most hotly contested and marginal wards

    Only the most diehard supporters tend to display posters
    While I agree, as one who was involved in many local elections from about 1960-1985, I was a little surprised to see nothing at all.
    There is absolutely no evidence locally that an election is taking place a week tomorrow

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited April 2022
    Carnyx said:

    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
    The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!

    The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
    There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.

    Remember 77% of North East voters rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum in 2004 and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Leics including Leicester is a million people. I am not suggesting independence, but enough for devolution of many issues. Many counties (such as Devon or Hampshire) have bigger populations, not far off devolved Northern Ireland, and more than several EU member states.

    Real local devolution is a key to the development of left behind areas. Our country is far too over centralised.
    Yes and many more have much smaller populations. The likes of Rutland have a population of 40,000. They don't make any sense as devolved units.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
    The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!

    The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
    There is more appetite for an English Parliament than regional assemblies.

    Remember the North East rejected a regional assembly in Prescott's referendum and the pro English Parliament English Democrats get some votes too
    What happens if/when the Yorkshire Party win in Yorkshire and demand devolution?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    IshmaelZ said:

    Why not? They were obv lying to themselves about their conventional capability until 9 weeks ago.

    Russia genuinely believed that Ukraine would fold within days, and so did a lot of people in the West. Russia didn't anticipate the resolve of the Ukrainian government or the courage of the Ukrainian people. They certainly were not expecting the West to arm Ukraine at the last moment. They expected a repeat of 2014. Also to some extent they seemed to be on a path that was predicated on a Trump victory in 2020, because planning likely began way before then, and perhaps after what happened in Afghanistan they firgured that Biden won't show any steel, so stick to the plan, what could go wrong?

    So it's primarly a failure of Russian intelligence. Putin's War in Ukraine has made it plain for all to see that Russia's military is incompetent, poorly lead, poorly trained, poorly equipped, and fighting a generation or two behind the West. We can see it as clear as day, and they can see it too no matter how much they bluster.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    edited April 2022
    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.

    Rutland isn't part of Leicestershire. Historically it's a detached part of Nottinghamshire if you want to be pedantic.

    In any case, while it's possible to cite examples of microstates that have populations smaller than some English counties, this really wasn't his implication. It was a bit of a daft statement by Foxy in his OP.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    Applicant said:

    .

    Carnyx said:

    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    Foxy said:

    Mr. Observer, slicing England into pieces instead of giving it a Parliament corresponding to Holyrood is not acceptable.

    Well, some of us don't have problem with devolution to regions. In England these are most appropriately the historic counties, most of which have populations similar to devolved or independent countries elsewhere.
    Er, umm?

    Do you know what the median population of a historic English county is?

    Clearly you do not.
    Foxy is entirely correct, as usual.

    Monaco is about 40K. Andorra is about 80K. Vanuatu is about 300K. Iceland is about 370K. Leics (admittedly with Rutland?) is 700K or so.
    Vatican City has about 800 people, so if we're working off literal meanings, then it's obviously correct but it wasn't really a meaningful statement in the first place.
    The background to all this is of a UK state whose instant reaction to indyref is to claim that Scotland (etc) is too small to be independent. How dare they break up the UK! And whose instant reaction to Yorkshire devolution is to make similar claims pro rata - how dare they break up England!

    The interesting point is that if the Yorkshire folk win, it opens the gates to a true federation of the UK albeit at reducing England to a number of reasonably sensibly sized units. As much discussed here, so I won't raise the pros and cons - just noting the wider implications of a serious, Holyrood or Cardiff level, Yorkshire devolution.
    The problem with balkanisation of England (as proposed by Prescott and apparently by these people) is that the last two years have clearly shown that England needs a government, so that when a national challenge in a devolved area (like, say, a pandemic) comes along, there are four governments working for the four countries, with a UK government on top doing some co-ordination and little else.

    Balkanising England into regions without having a place for an England government won't solve any problems. Devolve to England first - then if the English parliament wants to further devolve some powers to the regions, that would work much better.
    Opinions well aired on here, as well as others, when we've discussed it. Nevertheless - what happens if the YP win in Yorkshire?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    AlistairM said:
    This will be the problem with the inquiries too. Hindsight is brilliant. We could no doubt have saved/postponed many tens of thousands of deaths if we had locked down in Feb 2020. But we should only apportion blame where decisions were made counter to the full information available at the time, and we must also accept that prior to November 2020 we did not know for sure that the vaccines would work as well as they did (at least in reducing deaths).
This discussion has been closed.