Well, yeah of course it's getting support. Doesn't mean that it was somehow smart of Ukraine to provoke Russia, it was in fact still pretty dumb.
It's also not very smart to think countries should structure their entire policy around "not provoking" aka following the will of neighboring powers. Let's call spade a spade - you expected Ukraine to remain a puppet state. And what's the fucking point of having a state if it's going to not only not be properly independent, but run into shit by foreign rulers?
Just because a man sets up a trap doesn't make smart for another man to step in it so brazenly. Especially when it's a trap that anyone with common sense could've seen coming from a mile away.
What fucking trap, yeah, sure, Putin has a grand plan going centuries forward
The way they went about it is stupid. And insanity and stupidity aren't exactly mutually exclusive either.
In their case they kinda are.
Ah yes the mighty achievement of sinking a forty year old cruiser...
It's a cruiser, not your fucking sedan. Look at the ages of US and British warships.
And yes they've reactivated some old product, not like they can rebuild their entire military infrastructure overnight. But I'm still going to assume that that's one of their goals in this war, they need an excuse to rebuild their military to modern specs so they're creating an excuse. It's not exactly a revolutionary tactic, it's literally the oldest trick in the book.
Yet they aren't rebuilding shit, the facts are that if anything, they are rebuilding in reverse. They are losing good stuff, losing production lines of good stuff to sanctions, and have to satisfy themselves with reactivating old crap and low quality wartime production made of whatever they can get, which they also lose en masse because of how shitty it is.
No, they didn't need jack shit for an excuse, they do much worse things with a lot less excuse.
Well, usually I judge whether someone's telling the truth by whether he's been arrested or investigated for publishing it, or whether he was shot by an unknown mugger shortly after. So I guess the Pentagon leaks are my current best estimate, although I don't believe anything unconditionally.
Ah, so you trust idiots who don't take legal precautions and risk their freedom for discord cred, got it. And you said something about not trusting western governments i thought
You have a serious problem with taking things that nation states say at face value, like it's fine to take things that people say to you at face value a lot of the time but it's just naive to apply that sort of thinking to a nation state. In fact you should just assume that they're lying to you by default.
If they had any real need to end the war they wouldn't hesitate to use a nuke, you're seriously overestimating the effectiveness of the so-called nuclear armistice.
No, if they had real need to end themselves they wouldn't hesitate to use a nuke.
I'm not "overestimating the effectiveness of the so-called nuclear armistice", the fact is that it works, judging by amount of nukes used.
Right except that that's like the opposite of how the doctrine's been for the last few decades, these days we like our wars to be drawn out and messy affairs. A victorious war would mean you actually have to deal with the aftermath, find a way to manage whatever territorial gains you made and somehow govern the resentful populace. In the end you've gained nothing but a bunch of land you have to manage and you have to invest in a bunch of infrastructure that might not see profit for years or decades.
They already have to deal with the aftermath on occupied territories, which is even harder in wartime. Yes, from state budget point of view it's generally not worth it, but think of the well connected contractors who can charge 5-10x for providing basic services around occupied territories in wartime, we had a glimpse of that with the fortification quality and Mariupol rebuilding, both by said well connected civilian contractors.
A proper 21st century war is like a party with a bunch of friends and plenty of booze, whereas a victorious 21st century war is the hangover and dealing with the mess you made. With recriminating fingers pointing at you and chastising you for the mess you made.
Winning a war quickly and effectively is really only a priority when your survival is at stake, and that hasn't been the case for any of the nuclear powers since WW2.
If your survival is at stake then naturally winning a war is not that easy at all. If it was, then survival wouldn't be at stake.
But as i said, it doesn't matter if the state loses money overall in the war for a country like Russia, it matters if the important people gain money and extra positions to be divvied up, if the total balance is negative, oh well, who cares.
time.com
