Now the Long Knives are poised right in the back of Ukraine:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26400035

Fucking brilliant approach, this. First the attempt to play divide and conquer in Ukraine pretty transparently crashed and burned with the retun of Ukraine's Benazir Bhutto to political influence. Then, the Russians decide evidently that they really did move in Russian Army soldiers into the Crimea. Because the proper instinct when a risky gamble fails is to raise the stakes. This is not going to end well by any means. Now I'm wondering how long Lucashenko will have a country to rule as dictator, and what might happen with Round II with Georgia. If Tsar Vladimir I of the House of Putin succeeds in this kind of thing, that will only encourage him to expand his wars of aggression further because Ukraine is rather larger than Georgia, and this would permit Russia to begin aspiring to regain aspects of the old Tsarist boundaries. I sincerely expected Russia would use Central Asia for this kind of thing, not Ukraine.

The EU wouldn't give a damn about invading Muslims in Kazakhstan, but invading an EU state? That's not going to lead Russia to do anything but decide to engage in still-larger wars of aggression in the long term.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/world/europe/ukraine-politics/

And one of the chambers of the Russian legislature just approved this request. Hoo, boy.

Shit got real-er:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26403996

The Ukrainian Army is now on full combat alert. The prospect that the centennial year of the First World War will see the first large-scale conventional European war in decades has risen exponentially.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Not in any meanigful way. The UK is spread exceptionally thin, and France can barely project its will across the Med much less the Pacific.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So you think Mali is located on the Mediterranean? Definitely from another universe where geography is concerned.

[404.livejournal.com]

A few air planes and less than 5000 troops can be effective against militias, try that against the Russian army.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You sincerely think the US Army can fight without months of being allowed to gather all its resources unhindered? It has never had to do that since the WWII era, and I would be interested to know how the US Army would handle such a situation. My guess is not well.

(frozen comment)

[404.livejournal.com]

Stay focused if you can.

So you think Mali is located on the Mediterranean? Definitely from another universe where geography is concerned.


Get back to me when the French can beat back more than a few militias,

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Stay classy with the instant resort to personal insults the moment I point out that the comparison between France and the USA isn't something you want to explore here. This isn't Iraq here, nor is Russia going to give the USA months to set up our infrastructure. If you point out that France can't smash up militias, might I remind you that the USA's record with that hasn't been all that great under Bush and Obama? Or wait, are you next going to use some other passive-aggressive bit of whining to avoid admitting that your whole premise won't stand to scrutiny?

His claim was that France can barely project past the Mediterranean. If you're willing to not only defend his assertion but do so by means other than shifting the goalposts and trying to pin your debating methods on me, well......that'd be an entirely different and less predictable discussion. But to defend it requires Mali to be rather more northward than it is.

[404.livejournal.com]

The geography of France to Mali and say... France to Russia is pointless and a waste of time. The point still stands that France is not able to project its military the same way the US or Russia can. Quibble and hand waive the rest away, as you do, but see how France would do against a real army, regardless of how much time they had to plan, seeing that that is part of the army's job. Armies are SUPPOSED to be combat ready when called on, not after waiting to get things ready. This isn't WWI and France doesn't have time to implement Plan XVII.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, the point is that sandwichwarrior made an inaccurate statement, got called out on it, and you're managing to shift goalposts in every single post while trying to call me out on it. Your point is accurate, but it's not what the US Army, at least, is used to doing. If it's not facing that kind of situation....

[404.livejournal.com]

I think all this is more that you have a beef with sandwichwarrior and use a minor error to try to prove some bigger point about him. It's silly.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not about any kind of beef with sandwichwarrior. I consider it more of a friendly rivalry than anything. The people on this community I had a beef with have mostly all disappeared, and the one who hasn't I've pretty much avoided because tangling with some people on the Internet doesn't end well. So why are you making this all about me as opposed to simply conceding error on the Internet and moving on? It's the Internet, losing an argument doesn't kill you.

(frozen comment)

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Do you ever tire of whiteknighting?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Get back to me when the French can beat back more than a few militias

You realize they have nuclear weapons, right?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Hey, hoa, is someone getting nuked?

[404.livejournal.com]

Do you seriously think the French would use them?

(frozen comment)

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Stay within the rules if YOU can. For a change, you know.

(frozen comment)

[404.livejournal.com]

Trying to encourage UL to stay focused, and not veer wildly off topic, is a good thing.

(frozen comment)

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Doing it without all the disruptive drive-by ad hominems that have become so typical of you, is not only preferable, in your case it's strongly recommendable.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Do you really think that France could hold Mali if someone seriously decided to take it? What about French Guiana?

I'm curious as to how do you see that playing out?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, actually. Because African states have armies too expensive to actually use them, so any such force would be playing outside its weight class. As to French Guiana, who would bother? Goa this is not.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The identity of the would-be attacker is not relevant to the discussion.

If the French military has it's hands full dealing with untrained militias less than 6 hours from their own border what makes you think that they'd be able to fight and win in a combined arms campaign where the transit times and logistics train are going to be many times longer?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What says the US Army can fight something that hasn't been softened up for it and isn't willing to surrender en masse because it might have to do some fighting? This isn't Iraq, this isn't fighting Saddam's army that went under when others shot at it. This is the kind of scenario that leads to a general nuclear exchange when put into the hands of human beings. Going into this expecting either 1991 or 2003 is a good way for the Yellowstone Supervolcano to be pre-empted in wiping out a significant portion of North America.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Who says they can't?

Your dodging the question and moving the goalposts.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Objectively we have no clue what'd happen if the USA sends light infantry and they get attacked by enemy air power and heavy artillery and tanks. That hasn't happened, and Saddam never did try to move when he had the chance to do that. The USA is used to easy-peasy attacks on third-rate countries barely able to stand up to martyrdom-seeking teenagers with chemical warfare. This isn't that kind of war.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Why the fuck would we be sending light infantry anywhere they'd be facing combined forces unsupported? Most likely unit of deployment would be an MEU or CTF both of which include organic air and anti-armor assets.

...and you're still dodging.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because those are our actually readily deployable assets and it takes months to deploy a genuine armored division. Months that Russia, unlike Iraq, won't give us? I mean let's be frank here, Saddam was a target because it was transparent he was incapable of fighting a war. Russia is not Iraq, and acting like this is 1991 or 2003 is a recipe for a general nuclear exchange.