cubsfan

Coming around here.... not a very good start for the offensive. Certainly don't seem to be getting much news on the offensive, which might be par for the course with the corrupt media hiding bad news...

I thought these were pretty good articles regarding the difficulty the Ukrainians seem to be experiencing with their offensive. Looks like I'm gonna have to eat my words about the impact of technology making the difference. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230612/cynical-ukrainian-counteroffensive-takes-horrific-casualties-1111076303.html https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/22/the-end-of-offensive-warfare/

@shhughes1116 Thanks for the terrific input. Regarding Crimea - do you consider the entire population pro-Russian? Have most all pro-Ukrainian's left for good?

Couldn't agree more. Don't forget Europe is an even larger beneficiary of international trade. China exempted themselves with The Great Leap Forward, meanwhile Japan/Korea took off.. Russia??? Well..who wants to buy anything from Russia (except oil/resources) Like they say in Russia "They pretend to pay us, We pretend to work"... Quite the system.. You can hate capitalism, but socialism is a disaster...

Sounds like we ought to pack up our toys and let the Europeans and Asians fend for themselves!

^^^ I agree with much of what you are saying. The US should hardly throw stones at the rest of the world given our ridiculous Federal corruption and 2 tiered justice system playing out. And of course all of us should be highly suspect about President Biden's goals in Ukraine given the bribery allegations in play. Does he stand by Ukraine in order to pay his family's bribes back from Burisma? Or is he doing it to stop Russian aggression, when he & Obama took a pass on arming Ukraine prior to 2016? Both effectively gave Putin the all clear to continue invading Ukraine. Nothing was more sickening to watch than Obama lecturing the rest of the world like he ordain a new world order. I'm highly conflicted about this myself. You do 100% withdrawal from Afghanistan and let the country collapse - because you are tired of fighting. Yet you are a war monger when it comes to Ukraine. I have no idea how you defend such foreign policy. US allies need to know what to expect from the US - they must be more confused than ever. I still get back to the big picture that the US & Europe need to decide if the entire world is going to nuke up - or if they, together, will provide some type of forceful umbrella protection against invaders. I do not think you can discount the 70 years of relative peace in Europe against invasions due to this policy. It's expensive for the US, it should be for Europe as well - but the benefits of free trade allow all these countries to thrive.

Interesting/good input. Do you think the Russians can be expelled from Eastern Ukraine? Or are we destined for a stalemate whereby Crimea is conceded in order to return the East?

^^^^ Quite an insightful passage. Take it to heart.

The attrition math is not going to matter as much as technology and supply lines. The West is not going to throw human waves against entrenched Russian positions. The West has much more respect for life. This is not Verdun or The Somme. Artillery, anti-tank missiles, etc will carry the load - and stop the Russians. It will be the decision of the Ukrainians if they risk devastating loss of life. Ukraines allies will have to decide how far to deplete their own armaments/stockpiles in order to destroy Russian gains. It’ll be interesting to see when a treaty is negotiated. Personally, I think Crimea is gone for good. Eastern Ukraine? We’ll see…

From the Western point of view, I think you will see much more reliance on technology, drones, and artillery than manpower. The west has more respect for loss of life than the Russians. Furthermore, technology is much more important than manpower than in past wars. That said, expelling Russia will be quite the chore. But there is no way Russia possesses the advantage in the fight against Western forces, out numbered or not. The West will easily outproduce the Russians and they will have no capability of destroying supply lines. It will come down to a war of attrition and who wants Ukraine the most. Worst case, you end up with DMZ with Russia stopped dead in its tracks. Best case Russia gets expelled from Eastern Ukraine.

isn’t that the truth. Sometimes the easiest thing is the hardest to do.

@rohitc99 Sure - it's pretty well laid out in this forum that was fairly active last year: https://thecobf.com/forum/topic/19734-which-activities-in-life-brings-you-the-most-fun/ The discussion focused on physical activity. Lots of great comments about the benefits and what works for those of us that sit on their ass all day making money with our heads buried in screens... My view, at about 7 years ago, was to wake up and get serious about myself: https://youtu.be/xcsCxUW7LfU Good luck.

Oh no - don’t say that John if that’s the case , then I’m a lost cause! Seriously, I consider you remarkably restrained and respectful. No change needed.

^^^ Now that is pretty damn awesome John!

I’m 69 now. Interestingly, I had to get with the Boilermaker program starting about 7 years ago. Lucky for me - I feel much younger than I did in my 50’s. I’d actually call it the happiest period of my life.

I don’t know, but I have such a simple view of this situation. Do you want a world where everyone has nukes? Or do you want a world where a bulk of Western favoring democracies/allies can band together under some type of umbrella protection to protect themselves against expansionist/aggressors nations? Whether you call it NATO or a far East coalition against China/North Korea- the point is to have some level of strength and true WILLINGNESS to stop unchecked aggression in its tracks. You may think that is warmongering lead by the United States. I disagree. What’s your alternative is what I’d ask you? What chance do we really have for some level of world peace without such a policy??? And I respect the argument that this can’t apply to everyone and is unfair. You have those awful conflicts in places like Rawanda and Yugoslavia. It seems tremendously unfair. As an American, I hate the idea that so much of our GDP goes to Europe and Asia for protection. But what alternative do we really have? Become isolationists again, like we did with Japan pre-WWII? Become appeasers again like Britain did with Germany? We all know how that ended.. There’s a reason the first George Bush took the hammer to Sadaam when he invaded Kuwait. You can say it was about oil or whatever. It was about stopping aggression in its tracks and protecting the neighbors in the area. It’s about stopping something that may lead to something much, much larger. Take the pain now, before it escalates. That’s exactly where we are now with Ukraine…well into the escalation of something that well MIGHT have had been stopped much earlier. The leaders that pass off the problem look like heroes because they kept the peace….temporarily…until you have a wider conflict… That’s the kind of message that tells your allies or coalition members you mean business. For US citizens, it’s sucks to be in that position since it saps the country’s resources big time. So I would ask: what’s a better alternative?

@John Hjorth I wasn’t responding to you John. We posted at the same time. Sorry. My response was to change, who is suggesting we let Putin off the hook because he has nukes….. and I think @Spekulatiusis completely right. Putin is afraid of western democracy not an aggressive Ukraine that will attack him..

Your options are: do you let expansionism go unchecked? Do you let Putin, with his threat of nukes, then take the Baltic States, Poland in a few years? Continue to appease the despot? Ignore him, like the US ignored Japan with no threat of military action. Like Stanley Baldwin ignored the NAZI’s? Hoping with one more conquest they’ll be happy? Hardly. Sadly human nature does not change- there will always be evil people the world needs protection from. They are never appeased and don’t go away until they are stopped. I’d venture to say , despots like Putin tell you , they will use their nukes until you tell them the game is OVER. You are done terrorizing the world. that’s the only language Putin respects.

What you’re missing here is a couple of the key reasons WWII was so destructive. Pre-WWII, the USA had a strict policy of isolationism. Americans said flat out - we’re not fighting, we’re not getting involved. The Japanese knew this, and had no respect for America’s will to fight. If they were ever going to take the Philippines, Japan was going to have to take out the US Navy. It certainly backfired. Like Britain’s appeasement of Germany, US policy signaled to the aggressors- no will to fight. We’ll make noise and impose sanctions, but we’ve No stomach for a fight - and we’ve told the American people as such. If the USA and UK had diplomatically sent strong messages of deterrence to both Japan & Germany - the chances for a worldwide war would have been diminished. Fortunately for the Allies, the United States produced more equipment & armaments than all the Allies and Allied force put together. The big mistake for Britain was appeasement of Germany. The big mistake for the USA was isolationism on all fronts. No matter how strong you are or how great your army is - when you signal to the bully that you have no will to protect yourself or your friends - the bully is going to try and take you out and the conflict gets worse. This is what’s lost on the pacifist.

^^^ You are absolutely right @Xerxes. There is nothing new at all. Just a reminder that history repeats itself again and again. The fact that western leaders choose not to learn from history is real lesson. The Obamas of the world feel they are so special and revered, that if they extend magnanimity to a despot - that will actually change the man. It didn't work on Hitler and it wasn't going to work on Putin.

^^^^ Yeah, nice find there John. Agreements mean nothing to despots. It just stalls off the pacifist, so he can claim victory, and pass the buck off to another administration to deal with the real problem. It's easy to look like a hero, when you avoid war - but do nothing about the underlying issue. The right thing would have been to let Ukraine arm up (or join NATO) to insure their sovereignty. So you let him take Georgia and Crimea, keep appeasing the tyrant, all the while hoping he will stop. Sadaam made such a miscalculation with Kuwait and took the brunt of punishment in the form of George Bush. But Putin saw his opportunity with (appeasers) Obama and then Biden: Tyrants step all over weak leaders --- "It's now or never baby"...

Yeah, I got a problem with lot of this too. Do you back a tyrant or a corrupt Ukraine gov? Seems the notion that Ukraine was behind the Nordstream has some validity and it was always difficult to understand why Russia would take out their own pipeline when they could just shut it off. Lots of smoke and mirrors playing out. Lesser of two evils I guess...hard to be more evil than Putin.

So well put. Sullivan is a real puppet.

^^ Congratulations Xerxes on a wonderful time. Keep it going!

Didn’t Goldman get their cut of investment banking fees??