OT: Russia-Ukraine War

[Capn'O]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

[DOT]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

[mpharris36]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them?

We wont send troops but we will send a lot of weapons to help out. We sent anti-tank missiles (javelins) and hopefully will be sending stinger missles to help in the skies.

Ukraine seems to want to dig in and it will be very tough for Russia if it gets to a guerilla warfare state within the major cities.

Ukraine has the people to fight and make this painful for Russian troops...they just need weapons and hopefully we can help there to get as many russians as possible.

[Capn'O]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

It was our major misunderstanding in the Middle East. They were willing to **** with us for years with unlimited casualties. If Ukraine is similarly ready to go the distance, Russia could wear themselves out there like we did.

Or, if they have more to lose, Ukraine may simply say **** it and cede.

[DOT]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

It was our major misunderstanding in the Middle East. They were willing to **** with us for years with unlimited casualties. If Ukraine is similarly ready to go the distance, Russia could wear themselves out there like we did.

Or, if they have more to lose, Ukraine may simply say **** it and cede.

I think Vietnam is the more apt comparison, but broadly speaking, yeah.

[Capn'O]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them?

We wont send troops but we will send a lot of weapons to help out. We sent anti-tank missiles (javelins) and hopefully will be sending stinger missles to help in the skies.

Ukraine seems to want to dig in and it will be very tough for Russia if it gets to a guerilla warfare state within the major cities.

Ukraine has the people to fight and make this painful for Russian troops...they just need weapons and hopefully we can help there to get as many russians as possible.

This is my intuition - Russia may get more than they bargained for and the best move could be to simply let Russia spin their gears while weakening them with sanctions and Ukrainian aid from the sidelines.

[cgf]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

Donbas has a high proportion of ethnic russians & native russian speakers, so the local sentiment is pretty divided as things stand...not even accounting for the influx of ethnic Russians that we'll see come in over the coming years.

My worry with an escalation of guerilla conflict in that area would be that things would end up in the kind of hideous bloodletting that we saw in Ossetia once international attention got diverted elsewhere and it was officially the "independent" local government that was forcibly re-settling people.

[WargamesX]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

It was our major misunderstanding in the Middle East. They were willing to **** with us for years with unlimited casualties. If Ukraine is similarly ready to go the distance, Russia could wear themselves out there like we did.

Or, if they have more to lose, Ukraine may simply say **** it and cede.

Well there is another option and that is genocide and as much as I hate to think it I do not think Putin cares.

[Guano]

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[mpharris36]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them?

We wont send troops but we will send a lot of weapons to help out. We sent anti-tank missiles (javelins) and hopefully will be sending stinger missles to help in the skies.

Ukraine seems to want to dig in and it will be very tough for Russia if it gets to a guerilla warfare state within the major cities.

Ukraine has the people to fight and make this painful for Russian troops...they just need weapons and hopefully we can help there to get as many russians as possible.

This is my intuition - Russia may get more than they bargained for and the best move could be to simply let Russia spin their gears while weakening them with sanctions and Ukrainian aid from the sidelines.

Yup, the longer this drags the more likely it doesn't benefit Russia. There is already protesting going on around Russia I wonder if the people of Russia have the appetite for a long drawn out war. Russia targeted communications and air fields last night to cut off supply and put out propaganda to lesson support for Ukrainians to fight back but it doesn't seem to be working. Ukraine seems to want the smoke (they are even asking for anyone who can fight to step up). Ukraine just can't deal with the fighting in the skies and the air support Russia has. So if we can help there and Ukraine is willing to drag this out I think Putin probably thought Russia could do this swiftly and have Ukraine surrender and get the new gov't in place. But doesn't look like the case so far.

[cgf]

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

It was our major misunderstanding in the Middle East. They were willing to **** with us for years with unlimited casualties. If Ukraine is similarly ready to go the distance, Russia could wear themselves out there like we did.

Or, if they have more to lose, Ukraine may simply say **** it and cede.

Well there is another option and that is genocide and as much as I hate to think it I do not think Putin cares.

If Genocide worked that well then the 80s would have gone very differently for Afghanistan and the caucuses would be a lot more ethnically-russian than they are today.

The biggest differences between this conflict & afghanistan/vietnam are that russia is trying to carve smaller territories away from its neighbor rather than trying to set up a colonial government to rule over an entire nation; those territories have a by no means insignificant number of people with russian sympathies already there; and even those locals who are not russian & who will ferociously resist the return of Russian rule, have long histories/relationships with russian people & culture.

[El Poochio]

Wish Russia annexed us instead, economy is so fcked up here

[HarthorneWingo]

I don't have a strong grasp of the relative power of the two nations. Is this a clearly "winnable" war for Russia or could it be a quagmire for them? Will Ukraine simply cede or go the distance? Those questions certainly play into the calculus...

Traditional warfare, this is a curbstomp for Russia

Only way Ukraine wins without outside help is guerilla warfare, so it'll depend on how strong the anti-Russian sentiment is, which I don't have a firm grasp on.

It was our major misunderstanding in the Middle East. They were willing to **** with us for years with unlimited casualties. If Ukraine is similarly ready to go the distance, Russia could wear themselves out there like we did.

Or, if they have more to lose, Ukraine may simply say **** it and cede.

If the Vietnam War is any lesson, people will fight to the last man to save their homeland. Granted the dynamics were different there (US/North Vietnam vs Russia/Ukraine). North Vietnam took over 3 million casualties (equal to 27 million US citizens) while we only took about 50k. When former Sec of Defense Robert McNamara met the Defense Minister of the North Vietnam army, he explained that to McNamara who failed to enter that into the U.S. military equation. It’s in the Errol Flynn movie “The Fog of War”. How long will a country fight for its independence.

So, will Ukraine fight for its independence?

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[Zenzibar]

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[Appleshampoo]

Twitter is acting up right now did they get hit?

[mpharris36]

can we really be careful about what we post here especially from twitter? Ideally it would be from verified sources. There is a lot of misinformation out there.

[Zenzibar]

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[HarthorneWingo]

Buzzardman is officially the Knicks Forum Chief Military Correspondent.