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Global Britain – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,114
edited March 2022 in General
imageGlobal Britain – politicalbetting.com

“Pecunia non olet.” “Money has no smell”. Whatever its truth in the Rome of Emperor Vespasian, current events should have disabused the British political and financial establishment of the truth of this. Money smells. And how. And its stench lingers. As Britain is now finding out. 

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • "I promise you after this is over, I will never speak fucking Russian again".

    Astonishing video footage from the front line in NY Times blog:


    https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/02/26/world/ukraine-russia-war#video-captures-fierce-fighting-near-kyiv

  • Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    A company worth of Russian tanks and other vehicles reportedly in Chernihiv Oblast. What is notable is how old these tanks are, including T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B obr 1985 and 1989, MT-LB, and BMP-2. Likely an Eastern Military District unit.
  • not_on_firenot_on_fire Posts: 4,389
    One mystery to me is why Putin didn't choose to try this invasion whilst Trump was in power. Perhaps that was the plan, and COVID delayed it?
  • Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    ·
    54m
    One potential mistake in Russia's plan was to use its Eastern Military District units to play a key role in the advance on Kyiv, the most important objective. Russia's Eastern Military District is the lowest priority for equipment and manning.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,506

    One mystery to me is why Putin didn't choose to try this invasion whilst Trump was in power. Perhaps that was the plan, and COVID delayed it?

    I'd suggest a slow and predictable Biden is a better prospect for Vlad's plans than an unpredictable Trump.
    Trump might have stood on the sidelines cheering Vlad on and waving a little Russian flag. Or he might have pointed all his missiles at Moscow. Could Vlad really be sure which would happen?
    He is at least sure Biden sees a nuclear war as on the whole negative.

    OTOH, Biden, at the very least, makes it a lot easier for the west to act in harmony.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,269
    5th and off to bed now.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,557
    A poorly timed and stupidly pompous threader. Let the war play out. Let us see what history serves, first
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489


    Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    A company worth of Russian tanks and other vehicles reportedly in Chernihiv Oblast. What is notable is how old these tanks are, including T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B obr 1985 and 1989, MT-LB, and BMP-2. Likely an Eastern Military District unit.

    presumably there where not expecting to actually, you know, fight.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576
    There is so much discrimination against poor, mistreated money. Leave the money alone, it has done nothing wrong!
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576
    Leon said:

    A poorly timed and stupidly pompous threader. Let the war play out. Let us see what history serves, first

    A crisis like this strikes me as a good time to self reflect. Revelation may be more likely for the majority of us, and our leaders, stuck in the status quo.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576
    Cookie said:

    PJohnson said:

    ping said:

    Adam Tooze
    @adam_tooze
    ·
    1h
    We are in truly dangerous spiral:
    Brave Ukrainian resistance frustrates Russian attack -> Kiev refuses humiliating negotiations.
    Russia about to ramp up destructiveness of attack
    NATO members rushing weapons to Ukraine
    EU/US announce major sanctions.
    What is Russia’s next move?

    This is the worry ignored by many on here...this situation could spiral in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the west....
    I don't know whether you've noticed, but the situation has already spiralled in ways to the detriment of the west. There are currently Russian missiles raining down on Kyiv. The worst is already underway. The attack on the west has started.
    Indeed. Telling the West that responding in any way means it may get worse could well be true, but when the rubicon has been crossed even our leaders and public would decide, you know what, f*ck it, it potentially getting worse is preferable to just putting up with this shit.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,769
    It's alluded to in the header, but our libel laws are used to shut down journalists too
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576

    PJohnson said:

    ping said:

    Adam Tooze
    @adam_tooze
    ·
    1h
    We are in truly dangerous spiral:
    Brave Ukrainian resistance frustrates Russian attack -> Kiev refuses humiliating negotiations.
    Russia about to ramp up destructiveness of attack
    NATO members rushing weapons to Ukraine
    EU/US announce major sanctions.
    What is Russia’s next move?

    This is the worry ignored by many on here...this situation could spiral in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the west....
    ..and to your own side.
    Does anyone seriously think that this couldn't spiral unpredictably (apart from Mad Vlad of course)?

    This is the most dangerous time most of us have ever lived through. That was clear from the moment Vlad ordered his conscripts in.


    Of course it could spiral unpredictably, and it ways that get much much worse than now.

    But that is a potential, whereas the current unacceptable situation is a certainty. In such a situation doing something for the sake of doing something, for once, becomes a reasonable option.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576
    I do wonder how long the BBC is going to keep up its daily live texts of the invasion. This could last some time, they cannot keep that up forever.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489
    kle4 said:

    Cookie said:

    PJohnson said:

    ping said:

    Adam Tooze
    @adam_tooze
    ·
    1h
    We are in truly dangerous spiral:
    Brave Ukrainian resistance frustrates Russian attack -> Kiev refuses humiliating negotiations.
    Russia about to ramp up destructiveness of attack
    NATO members rushing weapons to Ukraine
    EU/US announce major sanctions.
    What is Russia’s next move?

    This is the worry ignored by many on here...this situation could spiral in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the west....
    I don't know whether you've noticed, but the situation has already spiralled in ways to the detriment of the west. There are currently Russian missiles raining down on Kyiv. The worst is already underway. The attack on the west has started.
    Indeed. Telling the West that responding in any way means it may get worse could well be true, but when the rubicon has been crossed even our leaders and public would decide, you know what, f*ck it, it potentially getting worse is preferable to just putting up with this shit.
    Or to put it another way, sometimes you just have to say 'Russian warship go Fuck your self' and live or not with the results.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006


    Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    A company worth of Russian tanks and other vehicles reportedly in Chernihiv Oblast. What is notable is how old these tanks are, including T-72A, T-72AV, T-72B obr 1985 and 1989, MT-LB, and BMP-2. Likely an Eastern Military District unit.

    Not surprising they're old when you see how easily some of them have been incapacitated.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,217
    Leon said:

    A poorly timed and stupidly pompous threader. Let the war play out. Let us see what history serves, first

    You’re surely not triggered by criticism of our immigration and asylum policies … or was it the stuff about money ?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,557
    kle4 said:

    Leon said:

    A poorly timed and stupidly pompous threader. Let the war play out. Let us see what history serves, first

    A crisis like this strikes me as a good time to self reflect. Revelation may be more likely for the majority of us, and our leaders, stuck in the status quo.
    I admire cyclefree’s eloquence even if I sometimes despair of her prolixity. But this doesn’t fit right, at all. It’s a debate to be had in the future

    Anyway I must abed. Despite the collapse of the world I am due in Richmond riverside for springtime walks and drinks, tomorrow

    Goodnight all
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,163
    edited February 2022
    Cookie said:

    One mystery to me is why Putin didn't choose to try this invasion whilst Trump was in power. Perhaps that was the plan, and COVID delayed it?

    I'd suggest a slow and predictable Biden is a better prospect for Vlad's plans than an unpredictable Trump.
    Trump might have stood on the sidelines cheering Vlad on and waving a little Russian flag. Or he might have pointed all his missiles at Moscow. Could Vlad really be sure which would happen?
    He is at least sure Biden sees a nuclear war as on the whole negative.

    OTOH, Biden, at the very least, makes it a lot easier for the west to act in harmony.
    Trump would have turned the TV on at 3am, flicked to some obscure right wing news channel, lifted his tenth burger of the day to his fat face, and whatever the announcer happened to be ranting about with respect to Ukr would have become US policy.

    No way could Vlad rely on which channel he alighted upon and at what hour.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,217
    Pulpstar said:

    It's alluded to in the header, but our libel laws are used to shut down journalists too

    As noted in the previous thread.
    It’s around two orders of magnitude cheaper for journalists to defend a baseless libel case in (for example) France than it is here.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,250
    edited February 2022
    Iran has recalled its London ambassador due to his holding an event earlier this month in which bare-headed women were allowed to play music.

    The event was to commemorate the 1979 revolution.

    The ambassador had been in post for less than a year.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,470

    Iran has recalled its London ambassador due to his holding an event earlier this month in which bare-headed women were allowed to play music.

    The event was to commemorate the 1979 revolution.

    The ambassador had been in post for less than a year.

    Misread this as ‘beheaded women’, sadly.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,576
    carnforth said:

    Iran has recalled its London ambassador due to his holding an event earlier this month in which bare-headed women were allowed to play music.

    The event was to commemorate the 1979 revolution.

    The ambassador had been in post for less than a year.

    Misread this as ‘beheaded women’, sadly.
    Would have been less troublesome for him?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,769
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,217

    Iran has recalled its London ambassador due to his holding an event earlier this month in which bare-headed women were allowed to play music.

    The event was to commemorate the 1979 revolution.

    The ambassador had been in post for less than a year.

    Can’t he claim asylum ?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,217
    Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke.
    https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,207
    Nigelb said:

    Russian missile strikes in Vasylkiv just south of Kyiv caused an enormous fire at an oil depot. Confirmed by city mayor and central government authorities who are advising people to close their windows because of toxic smoke.
    https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1497732567054749696

    I suspect the next 36 hours are going to be very, very tough for Ukraine. Let's hope they can hold on.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006
    Interesting thread from an Estonian member of the European Parliament.

    "Riho Terras
    @RihoTerras
    THREAD 1/7 Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days."

    https://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 4,264
    edited February 2022
    https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497393912821915648

    "I wish I could share more,but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin

    He has always been a killer,but his problem now is different & significant

    It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago"

    As part of Senate Intel cmtte he gets all the juicy gossip. The only way this all makes sense is if Putin is aware that his time left to achieve his goals is limited. Notably Fiona Hill has also been speculating about Putin having health issues, and taking steroids to mitigate inflammation.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,250
    Some chatter that 500 tanks are approaching Kyiv from three different angles. The order is to take Kyiv by Monday latest.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,269
    Leon said:

    A poorly timed and stupidly pompous threader. Let the war play out. Let us see what history serves, first

    I'm asking for what he said - https://twitter.com/juliansmithuk/status/1497545559913246730?s=21.

    If you think that's poorly timed you're the one with the problem.
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,489

    Some chatter that 500 tanks are approaching Kyiv from three different angles. The order is to take Kyiv by Monday latest.

    Where did you hear that? So far there armed vehicles including tanks have been getting blown up so a repeat of the same stratagem may not be very clever, maybe?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,250
    BigRich said:

    Some chatter that 500 tanks are approaching Kyiv from three different angles. The order is to take Kyiv by Monday latest.

    Where did you hear that? So far there armed vehicles including tanks have been getting blown up so a repeat of the same stratagem may not be very clever, maybe?
    Online rumour.
    Could he nonsense.
    Nevertheless, seems like the next 24-36 hours are key.
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 4,264
    BigRich said:

    Some chatter that 500 tanks are approaching Kyiv from three different angles. The order is to take Kyiv by Monday latest.

    Where did you hear that? So far there armed vehicles including tanks have been getting blown up so a repeat of the same stratagem may not be very clever, maybe?
    I don't see what could go wrong sending hundreds into narrow funnels (which can be blocked off at both ends relatively easily, trapping those in the middle), surrounded on both sides by mid-tall buildings where they can be attacked from a higher angle than their main turrets can reach. Even in optimal scenarios tanks are of marginal utility in urban warfare.

    More tanks would only make sense if the strategy was to try and deplete the NLAWs/Javelins faster than they arrive.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,560
    Chameleon said:

    https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497393912821915648

    "I wish I could share more,but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with #Putin

    He has always been a killer,but his problem now is different & significant

    It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago"

    As part of Senate Intel cmtte he gets all the juicy gossip. The only way this all makes sense is if Putin is aware that his time left to achieve his goals is limited. Notably Fiona Hill has also been speculating about Putin having health issues, and taking steroids to mitigate inflammation.

    Hmm. Steroids? Cancer, then. Surely nobody is going to press the nuclear button for a madman who is on the way out.

    There might be positioning for a takeover though. Is there a market on the next Russian leader?
  • Andy_JS said:

    Interesting thread from an Estonian member of the European Parliament.

    "Riho Terras
    @RihoTerras
    THREAD 1/7 Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days."

    https://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038

    The original source of this viral tweet that now has over 20k RTs/30k likes is a very, very dubious source who was linked to a made-up "Pentagon insider" named "David Jewberg". The story may be nice for morale, but it's made-up.
    https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1497615552206229506?s=20&t=GxTN5HkehOS3cpXEv1gcDQ
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,856
    edited February 2022
    The idea of placing a political type bet that is related to the current crisis in Ukraine, may seem in bad taste to some. But I have just placed such a bet. And I don't feel any awkwardness or embarrassment in having done so. I have had £600 on Ukraine at 4.8 to win the Eurovision song contest in May 2022.

    For the bet to deliver requires Ukraine to be in a position to be represented at the competition - which is of course far from certain at present. But if they do manage to turn up with an entry, I expect there to be overwhelming support and tactical voting in their favour. I've also had a quick listen to their planned entry - and it sounds OK.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    Andy_JS said:

    Interesting thread from an Estonian member of the European Parliament.

    "Riho Terras
    @RihoTerras
    THREAD 1/7 Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days."

    https://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038

    The original source of this viral tweet that now has over 20k RTs/30k likes is a very, very dubious source who was linked to a made-up "Pentagon insider" named "David Jewberg". The story may be nice for morale, but it's made-up.
    https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1497615552206229506?s=20&t=GxTN5HkehOS3cpXEv1gcDQ
    Yes, it sounds like a blatant lift of a Hitler-type story. "Downfall" transposed onto Hitler's hideout in the eagle's nest, or the wolf's lair.

    There's all sorts of information warfare going on, but one can be sure that it's all not going as well as expected for Putin so far.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    Guardian: Ukrainian Border Guard has a “strong belief” that the Snake Island defenders (who told the Russian warship captain to go fuck yourself) may still be alive. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/26/russia-ukraine-latest-news-fighting-kyiv-zelenskiy-assault-putin-capital?page=with:block-621accea8f0873d0384b1ba2#block-621accea8f0873d0384b1ba2
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191
    The Russian money spent in the UK to make it favourable to Russia looks to have been wasted. Or maybe was not significant in the first place.
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191
    rpjs said:

    Guardian: Ukrainian Border Guard has a “strong belief” that the Snake Island defenders (who told the Russian warship captain to go fuck yourself) may still be alive. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/26/russia-ukraine-latest-news-fighting-kyiv-zelenskiy-assault-putin-capital?page=with:block-621accea8f0873d0384b1ba2#block-621accea8f0873d0384b1ba2

    The first caualty of war is the truth.
  • PensfoldPensfold Posts: 191

    Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    ·
    54m
    One potential mistake in Russia's plan was to use its Eastern Military District units to play a key role in the advance on Kyiv, the most important objective. Russia's Eastern Military District is the lowest priority for equipment and manning.

    Does Rob Lee@RALee85 exist?
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022
    Pensfold said:

    The Russian money spent in the UK to make it favourable to Russia looks to have been wasted. Or maybe was not significant in the first place.

    Via Matthew Eliiot's connection between the Conservative Friends of Russia and Vote Leave, some of it very probably went into Vote Leave, which for Putin would probably mean it wasn't a waste.

    More direct funding to influence views on Russia probably went into traditionally more receptive states such as Germany, Italy and Greece, where views of Russia are almost overnight turning to ashes, now.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,470
    Pensfold said:

    Rob Lee
    @RALee85
    ·
    54m
    One potential mistake in Russia's plan was to use its Eastern Military District units to play a key role in the advance on Kyiv, the most important objective. Russia's Eastern Military District is the lowest priority for equipment and manning.

    Does Rob Lee@RALee85 exist?
    On twitter, not on PB.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,217
    .
    Cyclefree said:

    5th and off to bed now.

    Off to sleep, too.
    Good night, and thanks for the header.
  • The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,083
    Mail on Sunday reporting a JBL Partners poll. Half of the Cabinet including Boris Johnson will lose their seats, they report.

    However, I can't see the actual poll?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,083
    Other western countries are increasingly supplying Ukraine with weapons e.g. Germany, Australia.

    At what point does Putin continue his descent into madness and decide that this constitutes world war? Serious question.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible speed. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,083

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
    .
    Pretty tenuous link there I'm afraid.

    You are so categoric it's scary. In my experience people who see the world in such stark binary polarity are usually wrong. But they're certain they're right, which makes it pretty hard to debate meaningfully with them.

    'The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.'
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,675
    In February 2020, just 2 years ago, 52 of 53 Republican senators voted to allow (then) President Trump to block congressionally authorized sale of critical military supplies to the courageous President Zelensky of Ukraine, unless Ukraine manufactured anti-Democratic propaganda.
    https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/1497581887941918720

    Will Putin be the second time in as many years the Republican Party bet on a loser?
    https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1497764978564034567
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,083

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    Honestly, meant in a friendly way, I think you should go and make yourself a cup of tea and calm down. You are coming over as so full of rage.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139
    Heathener said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    directly led to the invasion of Ukraine
    .
    Pretty tenuous link there I'm afraid.

    You are so categoric it's scary. In my experience people who see the world in such stark binary polarity are usually wrong. But they're certain they're right, which makes it pretty hard to debate meaningfully with them.

    'The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are full of passionate intensity.'
    So you write one line of substance, then two paragraphs attacking me. But getting to that one line:

    Why is it tenuous?

    If you go back to 2014, 2016 2018 etc, I believe you will find posts from me predicting this sort of mess, or similar.

    As I said below: I was right. This gives me no joy. But it does give me a healthy disdain for those who still try to defend what was a disastrous party-political decision by Miliband.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139
    Heathener said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    Honestly, meant in a friendly way, I think you should go and make yourself a cup of tea and calm down. You are coming over as so full of rage.
    LOL. I am calm. I'm actually having a fun morning.

    I guess you have nothing to actually counter my argument, and therefore are resorting to this sort of comment.

    (If I was to respond in kind, I'd ask what the weather's like in Russia today, comrade!)
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin had already conclusively turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria was just confirmation and continuation of that.

    The West played no role when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence aspect has some merit.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006
    edited February 2022

    Andy_JS said:

    Interesting thread from an Estonian member of the European Parliament.

    "Riho Terras
    @RihoTerras
    THREAD 1/7 Intel from a Ukrainian officer about a meeting in Putin’s lair in Urals. Oligarchs convened there so no one would flee. Putin is furious, he thought that the whole war would be easy and everything would be done in 1-4 days."

    https://twitter.com/RihoTerras/status/1497537193346220038

    The original source of this viral tweet that now has over 20k RTs/30k likes is a very, very dubious source who was linked to a made-up "Pentagon insider" named "David Jewberg". The story may be nice for morale, but it's made-up.
    https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1497615552206229506?s=20&t=GxTN5HkehOS3cpXEv1gcDQ
    Fog of war, etc. Some of the national newspapers have been reporting it as well.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,679
    David Frum has a fascinating piece in the Atlantic on the decision to freeze the Russian central bank's transactions with the west. Presumably they won't have access to those foreign reserves they've being using to prop up the Ruble?

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/how-russian-sanctions-work/622940/
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I would more as a kind of moral wish fulfilment.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,122
    I have no doubts that we let in all sorts of shady people and do “business” with them, but I’d rather if a header like this named some names.

    On house prices, printing money and ultra low interest rates have done far more to hurt the prospects of young workers in London and the South East.

    Britain is helping Ukraine with intelligence and military equipment. This is to its credit.

    Very good of you to mention. We’re far from perfect, but I’d suggest Germany has a lot more to be ashamed of in respect to Ukraine.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,297
    Scott_xP said:

    In February 2020, just 2 years ago, 52 of 53 Republican senators voted to allow (then) President Trump to block congressionally authorized sale of critical military supplies to the courageous President Zelensky of Ukraine, unless Ukraine manufactured anti-Democratic propaganda.
    https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/1497581887941918720

    Will Putin be the second time in as many years the Republican Party bet on a loser?
    https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1497764978564034567

    I wouldn't be surprised if Trump and the Republicans ultimately realise they are on the wrong side in Ukraine, and do a sharp and shameless U turn. The Ukrainians look like the better fighters in the PR war. The possibility that he will be back in less than 3 years time makes it urgent that we act now on Russia.

    What I am pleased about is the fact that we have Johnson and the Conservatives in power rather than Corbyn and the labour party. I'm also pleased that Corbyn and his followers have been consigned to the political wilderness, and that their views on international affairs are not being humoured, or given any airtime even, at all.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,356
    edited February 2022
    Great header from @Cyclefree, and worth noting that we have rolled out the red carpet in London to kleptocrats from a far wider range of counties than Russia.

    Though not sure about the final paragraphs on Ukranian refugees. If we should be more open to them, then why should we not be as open to those fleeing Yemen, for similar reasons? Asylum policy has been made as hostile as possible in recent years to those fleeing all sorts of warzones.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006
    edited February 2022
    Heathener said:

    Mail on Sunday reporting a JBL Partners poll. Half of the Cabinet including Boris Johnson will lose their seats, they report.

    However, I can't see the actual poll?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html

    Lab 45% (+12% compared to GE2019}
    Con 32% -13%

    It's an MRP study:

    Lab 352 seats (+149)
    Con 201 seats (-164)
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,356
    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    Mail on Sunday reporting a JBL Partners poll. Half of the Cabinet including Boris Johnson will lose their seats, they report.

    However, I can't see the actual poll?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html

    Lab 45%
    Con 32%

    It's an MRP study:

    Lab 352 seats
    Con 201 seats
    GE is 2 years away, so a lot can change, but that is quite some Starmer landslide.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,565
    kle4 said:

    I do wonder how long the BBC is going to keep up its daily live texts of the invasion. This could last some time, they cannot keep that up forever.

    They seem to have a daily live text of something every day. It's just curating occasional short posts filed by other journos augmented by whoever is looking after it, isn't it?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity , even before we start on all the other issues.
    'could'

    Although I doubt it.

    Also, we were perfectly capable of performing airstrikes against ISIS as well - as we did in Iraq. We could not do so in Syria because of the Russian presence. It was not a one-only approach.

    The fact remains: we had values. We did not stand up for those values.

    Even now, with those values being pressed much more, western countries are finding it hard to respond.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,666
    After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity , even before we start on all the other issues.
    'could'

    Although I doubt it.

    Also, we were perfectly capable of performing airstrikes against ISIS as well - as we did in Iraq. We could not do so in Syria because of the Russian presence. It was not a one-only approach.

    The fact remains: we had values. We did not stand up for those values.

    Even now, with those values being pressed much more, western countries are finding it hard to respond.
    As I said, part of the justification for war in the run-up to Iraq wasn't just the false claims of WMD, but the very accurate charges of gassing his own people at Halabja, which were widely publicised around the world at the time, and the West used as a form of precedent.

    What happened next ? Hundreds of thousands of people died after the Western action, and the country disintegrated into chaos. What did the West achieve by what it proclaimed to be the same values-based action ?

    Why on earth didn't more western policymakers even understand that that was ten times more likely to happen again, given that chaos from the previous failed intervention was already contributing to the collapse of its neighbour ?

    This thinking was just not at all in touch with reality.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,813
    darkage said:

    Scott_xP said:

    In February 2020, just 2 years ago, 52 of 53 Republican senators voted to allow (then) President Trump to block congressionally authorized sale of critical military supplies to the courageous President Zelensky of Ukraine, unless Ukraine manufactured anti-Democratic propaganda.
    https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/1497581887941918720

    Will Putin be the second time in as many years the Republican Party bet on a loser?
    https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1497764978564034567

    I wouldn't be surprised if Trump and the Republicans ultimately realise they are on the wrong side in Ukraine, and do a sharp and shameless U turn. The Ukrainians look like the better fighters in the PR war. The possibility that he will be back in less than 3 years time makes it urgent that we act now on Russia.

    What I am pleased about is the fact that we have Johnson and the Conservatives in power rather than Corbyn and the labour party. I'm also pleased that Corbyn and his followers have been consigned to the political wilderness, and that their views on international affairs are not being humoured, or given any airtime even, at all.
    Agree with all of this. Firstly, this tragedy serves to remind us once again both how wretched the current Government is and how much worse off we would've been with the lunatics of the far left in charge. Secondly, we must spend the time that we have between now and 2024 industriously pulling out the claws and teeth of the Russian bear, caging it, and padlocking and welding the cage shut. We must make that cage so secure that, even if Trump is let loose upon the world again, he struggles to open it back up again.

    For the avoidance of doubt, I don't advocate war with the Russians but I do advocate total isolation. We should have no trade, no commerce, no cultural links and no diplomatic ties (save for those at the United Nations) at all, and that state of affairs should continue for at least as long as Looney Tunes sits upon his throne of weapons at the Kremlin, and quite possibly for a lengthy spell after that. The whole of the rest of Europe should say, collectively, that we are done with Russian threats, and we want nothing more to do with Russia until the threats cease and we see concrete evidence that it is willing and able to clean its act up.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity , even before we start on all the other issues.
    'could'

    Although I doubt it.

    Also, we were perfectly capable of performing airstrikes against ISIS as well - as we did in Iraq. We could not do so in Syria because of the Russian presence. It was not a one-only approach.

    The fact remains: we had values. We did not stand up for those values.

    Even now, with those values being pressed much more, western countries are finding it hard to respond.
    As I said, part of the justification for war in the run-up to Iraq wasn't just the false claims of WMD, but the very accurate charges of gassing his own people at Halabja, which were widely publicised around the world at the time, and the West used as a form of precedent.

    What happened next ? Hundreds of thousands of people died after the Western action, and the country disintegrated. What did the West achieve by that, and why on earth didn't more western policymakers understand that that was even ten times more likely to happen again, given that chaos from the previous failed intervention was already part of the cause for the collapse of its neighbour ? It wasn't thinking that was moored in reality.
    Ah, so it's all out fault again. I get it.

    BTW, if you talk about the Iraq war, it's important to say whether you're referring to the first or second.

    You seem to be saying that we should never stand up for our values. Is that correct?
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,139
    Andy_JS said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
    Do you see it as a negative or a positive important decision?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,297
    It is generally a mistake to view military conflicts as being about good vs evil; you cannot start to make these assessments until looking back on the situation many years after the event. There are good and bad judgements though. Iraq 2003 was a bad judgement, and that was clear at the time, and the disastrous course of the war proved the point.

    Ukraine does feel like a case of good v evil, but certain types of intervention in it could still amount to a bad judgement on our part. In backing the Ukrainian government the way they have I think the west, particularly Britain, have judged this right. The longer the Ukrainian opposition to Putin proves itself as credible , the more support is justified.

    The worst case for us would have been to have visibly backed the Ukranian government, only for it to collapse in the face of a Russian attack, in the way that the afghan government did when faced with the Taliban.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,028

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
    I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.

    However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.

    So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006
    edited February 2022

    Andy_JS said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    This was pretty much the only important decision Ed Miliband made during his 5 years as leader.
    Do you see it as a negative or a positive important decision?
    I agree with what you wrote earlier about it. He made the wrong decision IMO. We always said we wouldn't let anyone get away with using chemical weapons again after Kurdistan in 1988: it happened again, and we decided to do nothing.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,565
    moonshine said:

    After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.

    Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity , even before we start on all the other issues.
    'could'

    Although I doubt it.

    Also, we were perfectly capable of performing airstrikes against ISIS as well - as we did in Iraq. We could not do so in Syria because of the Russian presence. It was not a one-only approach.

    The fact remains: we had values. We did not stand up for those values.

    Even now, with those values being pressed much more, western countries are finding it hard to respond.
    As I said, part of the justification for war in the run-up to Iraq wasn't just the false claims of WMD, but the very accurate charges of gassing his own people at Halabja, which were widely publicised around the world at the time, and the West used as a form of precedent.

    What happened next ? Hundreds of thousands of people died after the Western action, and the country disintegrated. What did the West achieve by that, and why on earth didn't more western policymakers understand that that was even ten times more likely to happen again, given that chaos from the previous failed intervention was already part of the cause for the collapse of its neighbour ? It wasn't thinking that was moored in reality.
    Ah, so it's all out fault again. I get it.

    BTW, if you talk about the Iraq war, it's important to say whether you're referring to the first or second.

    You seem to be saying that we should never stand up for our values. Is that correct?
    No ; I'm saying that actions like Iraq, which the proposed intervention in Syria bore many similarities with, had no effect on standing up for values. Quite the reverse.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,813
    Early days, but...

    China so far not helping Russia evade Western sanctions-U.S. official

    https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1497792402987356160

    China is Russia's largest trading partner for both imports and exports. If President Xi decides that he would rather let the Russians suffer than risk setting off a trade war with the West, then the Russian economy is toast.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,006
    Thanks to Sandpit for the interesting post
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,043
    edited February 2022
    ydoethur said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
    I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.

    However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.

    So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
    I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved overall to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,463
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Heathener said:

    Mail on Sunday reporting a JBL Partners poll. Half of the Cabinet including Boris Johnson will lose their seats, they report.

    However, I can't see the actual poll?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10556181/HALF-Boris-Johnsons-Cabinet-lose-seats-general-election-held-poll-reveals.html

    Lab 45%
    Con 32%

    It's an MRP study:

    Lab 352 seats
    Con 201 seats
    GE is 2 years away, so a lot can change, but that is quite some Starmer landslide.
    I think BJ is starting to find his feet on this crisis... grand statements about the plucky Ukrainians in my cynical opinion is just what he is perfect at, rather vacuous, but good to stir a certain British voter, I expect to see his govt have an uptick... (not that I welcome it)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,028

    ydoethur said:

    The Telegraph on Tory defence cuts, reducing the army to 72,000 soldiers with a mere 148 tanks and none of the armoured combat vehicles necessary alongside them; with eight infantry battalions down to four.

    Meanwhile our war stocks of replacement vehicles, weapons and ammunition have been stripped bare by an ill-judged imitation of industry’s “just-in-time” policies – not for efficiency but to save money. We sent only 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and I suspect we don’t have many more to spare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/26/age-conventional-warfare-back-britain-isnt-ready/ (£££)

    Backers of Ben Wallace to replace the Prime Minister might want to reconsider their bets. Or not, since although Wallace signed the most recent defence review, he is now likely leading the calls for more resources.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/troop-cuts-must-reversed-counter-threat-russia-warn-ministers/ (£££)

    Yes, the military has been chronically underfunded for decades. Including during Blair's time in power - remember the wizard wheeze where one of the carriers was technically fit for duty in a month, when it had had most of its engines removed for spares for its sisters?

    Mistakes in defence procurement pale into insignificance compared to the disastrous decision of Miliband to vote against intervention in Syria. We are where we are now, in part, because of that decision. Oh, and how some people on here cheered it on! They got one over the government! Hurrah!
    The mass bombing of Syria government positions when Isis were in the ascendant would have been an absolute catastrophe. Isis may have overrun the entire region, attacked Israel and Lebanon too, and it still be in utter chaos. Miliband's intervention may well have averted an even worse disaster than Iraq, and was quite possibly even one of the most important by a British politician in the forty or fifty years since Harold Wilson and Vietnam.
    Your scenario is very weak. Let me give a much stronger one, one backed up by events:

    Letting Assad get away with using chemical weapons showed the west as being utterly weak and divided, not willing to stand up to our principles. It created a power vacuum that Putin felt he could step into, gave Russia vital military skills, led to Salisbury, and has directly led to the invasion of Ukraine

    We were faced with two evils. We chose the one that went directly against our values, and Putin noticed that. He also noticed that we would back down.
    This was exactly the form of reasoning the led up to the invasion of Iraq, but now chaos had already been inflicted by the prior failed intervention, and Isis were gobbling up territory throughout the region at an incredible pace. The results would have been too awful to contemplate, and we were spared an unmitigated disaster.
    That's rubbish.

    Assad used chemical weapons against his own population. We let him get away with it, and emboldened Russia (and others) in the process.

    Either we have values or we do not. Syria showed we have fuck-all values.
    So did Saddam. We didn't let him get away with it, and it ended in absolute disaster.

    There's not really any relationship between that and the current situation. Putin turned his face against the West five years before, and nothing was done ; Syria wasn't much more than a confirmation of that. The West was effectively silent when he intervened in Georgia, and later South Ossetia, again five years before, which also coincided with the start of his attacks on civil society. That's when and where the deterrence angle really does have some merit.
    We did let Saddam get away with it. The Halabja Massacre was in 1988, and AFAICR he had used them before that as well. We only invaded Iraq three years later after they invaded Kuwait.

    No, Syria was a real turning point - although one of several. An evil had been done. Western governments were proclaiming it was an evil, but then, thanks to Miliband, we did nothing about that evil. This had two significant effects:
    1) It told Russia that when push came to shove, we were divided and weak - and they could divide and weaken us more.
    2) It allowed Russia to step into the vacuum, and believe they could win.
    3) The west was unwilling to do anything military against evil.

    Salisbury was a direct result of it. So is this.

    Oddly, this still holds together even for the nutjobs who believe that that Assad did not use chemical weapons against his own population.
    It would have emboldened and enabled an even more rapidly growing evil than Asad at the time - Isis - and made very little difference to Putin's opinion of the West, which was already entirely contemptuous. This is the transference of moral pride onto the grim strategic realities and equations on the ground at the time, I would say, and I think is more a kind of wish fulfilment.
    Assad has probably killed more people than ISIS. But it's like comparing Hitler and Mao: both were evil men, and comparing their hideous crimes becomes pointless after a while. Just accept they were, and did, evil.

    But the point remains: we have values. You do not use chemical weapons. He did. We did nothing.

    We told evil people in the world that we would not stand up for our values.

    And then Salisbury.
    But it wasn't a question of who killed more people, but who was more of a threat not only the entire region, but to us in Europe. Isis in 2013 could have rampaged across the entire middle east, and even well into Turkey and the Balkans. The whole concept of having enabled them so strongly at this stage is just insanity, even before we move on to address any of the other issues.
    I think one thing you're forgetting is that ISIS were not only, or even the strongest, opposition movement in Syria at the time military action by NATO was being mooted.

    However, when military action was forestalled the internal Democratic opposition was quickly eliminated by Assad. They had no outside supplies of soldiers, or weapons, or money. Isis was much more difficult to get rid of, because they had that foreign backing. As a result, they rapidly became the only serious opposition group.

    So you could argue that failing to act led to both Assad *and* Isis. Two for one disaster.
    I wouldn't agree with that, because the absolutely crucial factor, as highlighted by those more opposed to intervention at the time, was that by the time war from the west was being suggested, the balance of the opposition groups had moved to being in favour of the islamists. They were much more likely to enable the further rise of Isis than the democratic opposition, which, although they also battled them intermittently at other times for sectarian reasons, in terms of the broad changes they made to Syrian society, they did.
    I have already seen you don't agree with that, but it doesn't alter the facts.
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