The War in Europe

No, it creates that impression in your mind, erroneously.You don't like the word "attack". But that is what an aggressive defense is. Attack the opposing force regardless of what side of the border it is on.If that means staying home fighting a gorilla war around your capital then so be it. If it means marching on Moscow then so be it.If you don't like the word attack, or invasion, then use necessary military maneuver. The semantical differences are nil. And close your eyes to the border since, in war, it not longer exists.

Yes. Not to the rest of us.

Because we were attacked by Percy and we need to defend ourselves by attacking his castle in turn.Or something like that.

Because they know how to use it. A new MBT M1 Abrams would take months to train. Not fight, but the big part, maintain. The Ukes already have plenty of spare parts for russian tanks laying all up and down their roads.

Yes, we get a healthy dose of Ukraine news daily. The major news outlets have “in depth” coverage with talking heads periodically throughout the day.Right now, note my time 8:45 am pacific, FOX is interviewing Hillary about what more the US should do in Ukraine, CNN is doing its umpteenth replay of the Will Smith slap. The national stations, ABC, NBC, CBS are in the last moments of their morning shows which are pop culture shows with snippets of every scintillating story on the net, Ukraine included.We also have a Supreme nomination in our senate that is fun to watch as republicans fall all over themselves trying not to be racist misogynists (nominee is black woman) and failing. And the NCAA Final Four (college basketball) championships. A very rich spread of titillation for American society.As for the war, my read, the attention span is beginning to wane a bit. There is more stupid coming into the spotlight.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Agreed. Big cannons, jets, missiles, comm and counter-battery teck. We also need to share our intel assets, in depth, to alert the Uks where the ruskies are, their strength, their targets.

Here’s a what if.What if Zelenskyy’s recent appeal to the UN sparked some magic and NATO moves to declared Ukraine under its protection and begins air and ground operations in country?Does anyone else see Tzar Vladimir the Condemned so injured both militarily and politically that he could do nothing but scream? Sorta the same way NATO screamed when Russia first invaded.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Wow. No idea.Do nothing and let him pop another.
NATO pops one, similar target, similar yield.
Incinerate Moscow.What else?Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

If Ukraine are resisting the Russians but not defeating them are we doing enough?

You and Tangle are right, the Russian may very well defeat themselves, again. The human cost has been too high, though, and is not about to stop.What can we do to shorten this thing? Force it to a conclusion.

Do you think they could do this without months of troop movements to the baltic borders without notice? Would you then expect NATO to not react at all?

Your entire scenario is dependent on Trump. If Trump is elected then we are going to have much bigger problems in this country and we probably won’t give a flip what is happening in Ukraine or the Baltic or Taiwan or North Korea.Even still, we are years away from such an issue.What position is Russia in right now?The Russians are getting their butts kicked by a much smaller weaker force. The faults in the Russian military, and more so in their national command structure, have become apparent. The ruble has somewhat stabilized due to the actions of non-sanctioned Russian and sympathetic foreign banks. But the reports I’ve seen seem to indicate that bubble can’t last because the Russian trade economy and domestic supply and price disruptions are too severe.Economies can be slow creatures. A lot of the trade sanctions put in place these past few weeks will not effectively hit for another few months. The Russian economy is in for more forceful shocks.A resolution in Ukraine is not happening yet and I’m afraid it will be a while. Putin’s spearhead is broken. His military is bogged down in a war of attrition. To win, Putin must throw large numbers at a bad situation. That will deplete his military, his reserves and his supplies even farther.Putin will not be turning his armies north toward the Baltic anytime soon. That is a no-brainer.Yes, he could put together a conscript army with old cold war equipment to target the Baltic. He will need to move all that stuff up to the borders of the Baltic States and build a supply infrastructure set for invasion just like they did for their Ukraine deployment. This, I hope you agree, could not be done unnoticed by NATO, and in plenty of time to move in NATO assets to counter. A second-hand conscript army, supported by a failing economy, against a modern NATO.Again, a no-brainer.I have quite a bit of confidence that, if Putin puts a move against NATO anywhere he will lose even worse that he has in the Ukraine.I am also confident that Putin knows this. Despite the bluster, he knows he has fucked up, knows what arrays against him in this newly vigilant, and now expanded, NATO. He doesn’t need to fear NATO because he knows he cannot challenge NATO. He can no longer achieve his destiny of restoring the Great Russian Empire.From the analysts I’ve read I see a growing consensus that Putin is politically lost. He knows he is lost. He is purging to the gulag those he blames from his military and his staff.His military is indeed a clown car. It has nothing left except cruelty, war crimes. His economy is about to take a precipitous plunge and his world image and prestige has suffered irreversible damage. He cannot move NATO to his will. Whatever outcome for the Ukraine I doubt that Tzar Vladimir the Condemned will have the time or the resources to add any more conquests to his tarnished legacy.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Everytime you posit Putin's abilities to threaten NATO in anyway will elicit the same response. The nonsense is on your side.Btw, the two cites you gave in your Message 651 to Tangle are way old. Things have drastically changed since April 2021 and the points made in both of these articles are no longer valid. An entire war has been fought and lost since then.Russia has lost its influence on the world stage. No one, especially the Europeans, listens to Russia anymore. They watch and sharpen their swords.Putin has lost his military and his economy is falling. He is powerless to threaten NATO now and in whatever short future is left to him.

I heard russian media saying Moskva is now the name of Russia's newest missile submarine presently undergoing sea trials in the Black Sea.

One issue may be that the tone of the discussion has become … bothersome. Difficult to point to many specifics, just a general emotion on my part that may be shared.Part of the rub I have is you insult the man by telling him his opinion is uninformed and without reason. Here he is awash in the constant vibe, the zeitgeist, of his society uncomfortably close to the action. You gotta know Tangle has more than a passing intellect. You gotta know his opinion is informed in ways yours and mine could not.To me this is disrespectful. He gave his opinions, including some reasoning, with which you disagree. He’s not required to write a tome of logical proofs to back it up.So now you castigate the guy for not wanting to continue to circle a bothersome, disrespectful, exchange.You gotta also know we love you, Percy, but, in this case, you are providing Tangle with less than optimal fun and he doesn't want to play with that toy anymore, so like go procreate vigorously somewhere.