Excargodog

I did an Air Command and Staff paper on that once. And an Air War College paper years later. Although I could have easily just reused the original ACS paper. Little had changed and what had had only gotten worse.

METO Guido

Too many..we’s..claimed all round. If you’re Kremlin, there’s no ceasefire deal without remapping a bigger mother Russia. As long as it takes. For Ukraine, full restoration of sovereignty over all occupied territories. War reparation terms, repatriation of displaced millions. As you’ve said, this not an American war. Yet that’s where the bills get paid. Time is clearly not in Ukraine’s corner. Where meto sits, on his little hand sock recliner, the time for either NATO action or peace accord talks is already overdue.

Hubcapped

The entire Russian winter offensive is deemed as culminated without any objectives achieved. The Ukrainians have stated they will commence offensive mechanized operations as soon as the ground is form enough. Think about this.

It’s ridiculous for people to claim that nato is unable to help in the Ukraine when through nato involvement this has been achieved. Russia can want whatever it wants, but the Ukrainians are coming. They have the equipment, they have the moral, and they are fighting for their homeland. Should be an interesting next couple of months.

dera

Decades of pro-Russian leadership in those countries has led to this point. There is hope at least Germany is finally realizing they can't keep going on that path any more.

Poland just upped their spend to 4% of GDP, their last buying spree is pretty impressive to read. Finland has a very powerful army and as of today is a NATO member. There is hope.

MaxQ

Some thoughts.
A big chunk of the posts focus on the idea that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is all about NATO and the USA. It is not. While Putin has decided to wage a cold-war styled war with the West since at least 2007, that is NOT why he decided to invade Ukraine.
The invasion is part and parcel of his decision to try and reassemble, at least in part, the Russian Empire. Ukraine was, to borrow a phrase, the jewel in the crown of that Imperium. Ukraine is also one of the world's "breadbaskets".
Zielona Ukrainie was the heart of Hitler's Lebensraum in WW2 and had also been the key strategic pivot of Germany in WW1 in response to the Allied blockade. Putin understands this better than we in the West do. With the growing crisis of global warming causing lower crop yields Ukraine would make Russia as important in world food supply as its oil and gas currently is to world energy supply.
He wants it. For the wealth, but also for the power it would bring.

Ukraine also was an integral part of Russia's criminal looting of a Nations wealth. Putin's kleptocracy wants that back as well. Also, a neighboring state of "Little Russians" that demonstrates embracing real, rather than performative, Democracy can bring a better life both materially and spiritually, is mortal threat to his autocracy and version of what makes a moral society. Ukraine is viewed as a cancer of liberal values and political freedom. This is anathema to the Putin of the KGB Sword and Shield upbringing and ethos, and enraging to his growing State/Religious/Sexual Morality fundamentalist conservatism. He wants to destroy Her,...Her language, Her Culture, and most of all, the very idea of being a separate nation and People. (as an aside...look up the definition of genocide. what I just wrote fits the definition perfectly)

Nato and the USA is involved because they (we) are supply material aide to Ukraine.
We have good reason to do so as Russia has decided that it can ignore the fundamental structure of how international borders and sovereignty works. For that reason alone, it is important that Russia fails. A secondary component of that is Russia is attempting to absorb one of the most economic/resource critical country in the world. Ukraine being re-colonized into a criminal styled Fascist government such as today's Russia would have a serious detriment to the rest of the world's economic stability, other Democracy's,(be they established or incipient) and obviously the Ukrainian people themselves.

Hubcapped

Well said. Standby for 69 posts about logistics now lol

MaxQ

yeppers.

Westmoreland understood and practiced logistics. I have read that Cam Ranh Bay was created into a modern day wonder.
By all accounts, however he didn't understand the war he was involved in. (to be fair, it seems nobody outside the military did either...from intelligence agencies to the McCarthy era gutted State Dept)

Never good results when you engage in a war with a Nation of which you know little, and understand even less.

Excargodog

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. In my study of the situation - and from years of being assigned in Europe - I think this is a somewhat overly simplistic analysis. Europe is an incredible hodgepodge of old feuds and displaced people due to historical factors that are well beyond the control of anyone today to fix. Let me give you one specific example- Kaliningrad.



https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18284828

In Kaliningrad you have basically a million Russian citizens and Russia’s only ice free European port. Only it isn’t actually attached to Russia. It has been Russian for a relatively short time, almost 80 years now as part of the Potsdam agreement. But it is two countries away from today’s Russia. But it also is the base for the Russian Baltic fleet. Ans a million people who believe themselves to be Russian, not German. And they likely have Islander nuclear missiles.

Europe has lots of these little enclaves, not just Russian, but other ethnic and cultural nationalities as well. It has thousands of years of recorded history, with damn near everyone being oppressors or oppressed at one time or another. Some areas, (the area around Saarbrucken for instance) have changed hands multiple times. Sometimes historical treaties (Treaty of Versailles, Treaty of Munich, the Potsdam agreement, for instance) simply gave away land and the people who lived on it without regard to those people’s own wishes, cultural norms, or languages. Sometimes actions were taken - even attempted genocide - which the survivors found unforgivable. Ever study the Armenian Azerbaijani history? The pogroms that killed Armenians in a spate of ethnic hatred? https://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/HRC...HRC_28_G14.doc. Much of it still a legacy of battles fought 100 years ago?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baku

Which continue to this day.
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-br...national-norms

Europe is a veritable smorgasbord of old hatred’s and historic injustices that most of us in the US will never comprehend because we weren’t raised in the culture.

Things are seldom as clear cut as you try to make them.

dera

What you are ignoring is that Europe, by a vast majority, aligns with the western values of democracy et al. They might disagree with each other over minor disputes but still share the same common values. Königsberg obviously is an exception given the Russians replaced the population there by force. But even though the Basques and the Spanish might disagree with each other, they will still share the same goals of freedom and democracy. That is what NATO taps on - it transcends these local disputes, and when the latest expansion is complete (after Turkey stops it's nonsense) it will be much stronger, and will be the required counterbalance to Putin and his pathetic attempt to try to flip the power balance towards the RU/China axis.

Excargodog

Having lived there for years, I don’t see it quite this simplisticly. But you are certainly entitled to your opinion. The elected officials in Spain imprisoned for sedition (and recently paroled) for simply allowing a non binding referendum on Catalonian independence might see things more my way than yours.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57565764.amp

These issues are far more nuanced than most Americans take the time to understand.