bsq wrote: Mon Aug 01, 2022 8:01 pm
You need a phase shift, 180 degrees should just about do it.
...
In his head, in the Duma, in the state controlled press. Everywhere else they lost when they failed to take Kyiv within the first few days and the reported decapitation events did not occur (or were thwarted). Now they dont seem to have a plan, apart from shell, shell, shell, shell, shell.
Suffice to say, this is
exactly what I was warning against. Not trying to insult you, but: Section D. Read it again. There's a reason I put it in there. This is a pitch perfect example of the 1st Rule of War in action:
You are not immune to propaganda, even after taking into account the effects of propaganda.
This is a grind now, no one will win,
Untrue. Russia may not get everything it says it wanted, but Russia never was going to get that with only 150k men. To a smart planner, that's "giving the OPFOR an out that saves face and allows us to keep what we really wanted." Hint: look at oil fields and pipelines, as well as culturally Russian areas, and Ukraine won't be joining NATO. Russia has almost everything it needs now, already. Everything else is gravy. Right now, they're busy costing Ukraine (and NATO, for that matter) more than Russia is spending and taking territory they have the option of giving back, at a price that they decide.
there may be a status quo,
Yes, that favors Russia.
...(B)ut all talk of Russian advances have now disappeared and all that is being talked about (on both sides mind you - although the truth from Russians often gets deleted before it has lived too long in the public domain) is how effective HIMARS is (although you can substitute any proper PGM in that case).
Yes. You'll notice that exact pattern in nearly all modern warfare: it takes several weeks to months for the surprised party to become combat effective (and it's a good measure of just how shitty your OPFOR is in the time it takes for them to become so. Ukraine took
ages). What we're seeing now that they are combat effective is NOT talk of counter-offensive, but mere holding actions, at best. Russia is still taking territory. This is bad, really bad if you're rooting for Ukraine. (NOTE: I'm not rooting for either side. I'm not a Capitalist, nor do I approve of colonialism, in any of its myriad guises. Russia shouldn't be doing what it's doing, and NATO shouldn't have provoked Russia into doing what it's doing. Provocation is a perfectly reasonable legal defense, one that US propaganda outlets conveniently ignore. Here in the US, the legal term we use is
Assault. Russia asked them to stop, repeatedly. They were ignored. Actions have consequences and ignoring the actions 'your side' took to demonize the other side is, yet again, an example of The 1st Rule of Warfare.)
Don't forget we had years trying very hard not to cause collateral damage in Afghan, spent billions on it, would have lost in any event as we were being bled dry of Dollars/Euros/Pounds by the cost of munitions which do what they say on the tin.
The Russians on the other hand see collateral as inevitable and, if called out, deny everything. Worked in Afghan for them. Worked in Grozny, Worked in Syria - those were easy, there was no western press corps, no real western interest (until CW was used).
If you'd lived through WWII, making sure the Nazis didn't win, with inferior materiel and nothing but unbelievably brave young men to throw into a meat grinder, you'd have exactly the same attitude. The Russians also have no problem with use of tactical nuclear weapons, especially at sea. NATO has very, VERY few tac nukes. It's a rather large hole in their doctrine that the Russians (and the Chinese, for that matter) will exploit mercilessly if there's ever a non-proxy conflict.
Now though the world is looking on and truly for all their 'vaunted' prowess they are awful and are being seen to be awful (in a professional and competence sense, you draw your own conclusion about the morals of what they are doing and have done).
LOL, repeat after me:
You are not immune to propaganda, even after taking into account the effects of propaganda.
This is merely the first combat that the West has
cared about, because of oil, because of nuclear weapons placement and because Russia is making the Nazi's mistake: colonizing white people. Germany in 1939 didn't do anything different or more awful than what the British Empire did in India, or the Dutch did in the DEI, the US did to Native Americans or France to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa, they just did it to
white people next door. Churchill is directly responsible for the deaths of millions of Indians through brutal executions, torture and starvation. Just like Hitler. But British Indians were poor, non-white, and far away, so nobody gave a shit, then or now: People
still quote W.C. like he's some kind of hero instead of exactly the same kind of raging bigot that Hitler was, just to people not so close by. The British and the US dropped bombs on innocent German non-combatants in cities...
deliberately. The US
atomized the innocent citizens of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. You think they won't hesitate to do it again? The only thing stopping them is a lack of a war big enough to justify it.
Again, propaganda
works, even after you take into account the effects of propaganda. It's a powerful drug, one you don't even know you're taking.
In war, the only people who win are the propagandists.
