Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Colonel_Klinck said:
That whole series of videos on Putin and the Presidents was really interesting viewing. Bolton's was the most damning of Trump but all of them confirm Putin thought he was an idiot who was easy to manipulate and was doing Putin's work for him in regards to weakening NATO bonds.
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I don't have much time for Bolton but a lot of interesting stuff in there and he has some quite shrewd insight into some things.
 
Roar87 said:
Yeah my point is that it may seem now like our only potential enemy is Russia, but we actually don't know that will be the case.
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I'm not sure it can be that much of a surprise... General public opinion on Russia may have been a lot more relaxed 10 years ago, but many observers were concerned about their changing attitude to the West, and that they posed to nearby ex-USSR states. There were clear reasons to think they might be a risk - mainly the nature of Putin's regime, but also its proven will to launch military operations like the Chechen wars & Georgia, unacceptable acts like killing Litvinenko etc.

I'm not sure any other nearby countries are anywhere near as much of a risk. Eg sure Hungary is in a bit of a dodgy patch, but the politics are nowhere near as bad as Putin's Russia, it's in NATO, and let's face it Hungary just can't ever be as powerful a player as Russia. Could be said that political stability in many Western countries seems more questionable, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious direct military threat.

China is the elephant in the room, but realistically they will not be invading Europe (at least in the next 50 years), and are we really likely to be deploying a significant proportion of our air force or army to fight them in some third country (India, say)? I really struggle to imagine any such scenario.

Basically, imo the signs were there for Russia, and I'm not sure there is any other country that we should be anywhere near as worried about direct military confrontation with in the short to medium term.
 
GreatAuk said:
I'm not sure it can be that much of a surprise... General public opinion on Russia may have been a lot more relaxed 10 years ago, but many observers were concerned about their changing attitude to the West, and that they posed to nearby ex-USSR states. There were clear reasons to think they might be a risk - mainly the nature of Putin's regime, but also its proven will to launch military operations like the Chechen wars & Georgia, unacceptable acts like killing Litvinenko etc.

I'm not sure any other nearby countries are anywhere near as much of a risk. Eg sure Hungary is in a bit of a dodgy patch, but the politics are nowhere near as bad as Putin's Russia, it's in NATO, and let's face it Hungary just can't ever be as powerful a player as Russia. Could be said that political stability in many Western countries seems more questionable, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious direct military threat.

China is the elephant in the room, but realistically they will not be invading Europe (at least in the next 50 years), and are we really likely to be deploying a significant proportion of our air force or army to fight them in some third country (India, say)? I really struggle to imagine any such scenario.

Basically, imo the signs were there for Russia, and I'm not sure there is any other country that we should be anywhere near as worried about direct military confrontation with in the short to medium term.
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I think one thing we should always be aware of is that even in this day and age global politics can change extremely quickly - alliances which seem strong today, reasons which might keep the peace now might be in a very different place in a decade - and it isn't something best left defence wise to some future date.

Also the risk that Russia destabilised by the current situation was taken over by person(s) even more radical/extreme than Putin who'd go much further, much faster without fully comprehending the consequences.

The saying if you want peace make ready for war or variants of it have only ever been proved in recent events.
 
GreatAuk said:
I'm not sure it can be that much of a surprise... General public opinion on Russia may have been a lot more relaxed 10 years ago, but many observers were concerned about their changing attitude to the West, and that they posed to nearby ex-USSR states. There were clear reasons to think they might be a risk - mainly the nature of Putin's regime, but also its proven will to launch military operations like the Chechen wars & Georgia, unacceptable acts like killing Litvinenko etc.

I'm not sure any other nearby countries are anywhere near as much of a risk. Eg sure Hungary is in a bit of a dodgy patch, but the politics are nowhere near as bad as Putin's Russia, it's in NATO, and let's face it Hungary just can't ever be as powerful a player as Russia. Could be said that political stability in many Western countries seems more questionable, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious direct military threat.

China is the elephant in the room, but realistically they will not be invading Europe (at least in the next 50 years), and are we really likely to be deploying a significant proportion of our air force or army to fight them in some third country (India, say)? I really struggle to imagine any such scenario.

Basically, imo the signs were there for Russia, and I'm not sure there is any other country that we should be anywhere near as worried about direct military confrontation with in the short to medium term.
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Anything could happen in the South China Sea in the next 5-20 years. We might need to go protect Australia and Japan
 
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Rroff said:
I think one thing we should always be aware of is that even in this day and age global politics can change extremely quickly - alliances which seem strong today, reasons which might keep the peace now might be in a very different place in a decade - and it isn't something best left defence wise to some future date.
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I remember reading that there was an assement performed by the UK war office in 1900, projecting the most likely foe we would be at war with in the forthcoming (20th) century.

Their answer - The USA.
 
Iirc the view of a US top military figure is that there wont be a war / major conflict with china before 2025. Meanwhile in 2023 in AU we are trying to normalise trade relations with China (get sanctions against Australian goods lifted).
 
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Maple Leaf said:
OK, Rheinmetall (as RBSL) are doing the upgrades in factories in the UK. However, the L55A1 (Rheinmetall Rh-120) smoothbore gun replacing the Challenger 2's non-NATO compliant L30A1 rifled main gun and the Horstman suspension is German technology. It's not like it is a homegrown MBT using all British technology.

Besides, the upgraded tanks are not going to be ready until at least 2027 and are not guaranteed to be fully operational until 2030! Surely, the USA could supply us with new Abrams M1A2 tanks long before that?

Furthermore, the Defence Select Committee said in a report entitled Obsolescent and outgunned: the British Army's armoured vehicle capability, that 'Despite having spent around 50% of the allocated budget (£800 million), the programme has yet to place a manufacturing contract. The programme has a current in-service date of 2024 (originally planned for 2017) and is some £227 million over budget. After a decade of effort, this abject failure to deliver against both cost, (with an overrun now totalling over a quarter of a billion pounds of public money) and timescale (ISD seven years late) is clearly totally unacceptable.' So it doesn't look like the Challenger 3 project is good value for money anyway.

It might be a sign of our decline as a military power to rely on US MBTs, but at the end-of-the-day, if we have to fight Russia/China with them we are going to be doing it alongside the yanks anyway.
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Horstman (or Vickers-Horstman) is British, invented by John Carden
 
*Ukraine’s State Power Grid Operator Says Several High-Voltage Facilities Across the Country Hit by Russian Missile Attacks on Friday

06:31:02 - Air-Raid Alert Declared in Most Ukrainian Regions As Officials Warn of Potential Russian Missile Strike
08:09:01 - Explosions Heard in Ukraine’s Capital Kyiv and Surrounding Region - Reuters Witnesses
 
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Roar87 said:
Anything could happen in the South China Sea in the next 5-20 years. We might need to go protect Australia and Japan
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It's a possibility maybe, but I would still argue that helping Ukraine defeat Russia right now would be much more beneficial (by directly damaging their ability to wage war thus removing them as a direct land based military threat in the short term & perhaps giving Russia more of a reason to change politically in the longer term) than maintaining a marginally better armed forces ourselves to keep in reserve for a hypothetical future crisis involving China on the other side of the world.

I'd also argue that there were more reasons to be suspicious of Russia actually invading places in Eastern Europe 10 years ago than there are to be suspicious of China actually invading anywhere beyond Taiwan. Although I suppose Taiwan could well be a trigger for a bigger conflict, war with Japan etc.

I take the point that the future can be unpredictable and there may be unforeseen risks, which maybe become more clear in 5 years time - maybe we will be defending the Japanese home islands against China, who knows! However I don't think we should let hypotheticals and maybes prevent us from off seeing off concrete threats that definitely exist right now. Also it seems like a relatively small amount of aid could actually be quite effective for Ukraine.
 
Sankari said:
Japan, possibly. Australia, no. China wouldn't bother attacking us, that would be a one way street to a world of nightmarish pain for them.
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Not to mention after the display Russia has put on for the world in demonstrating how utterly inept and incapable their armed forces are that they wouldn't even dare a direct confrontation with NATO, I find it hilarious that someone would instead suggest that China might attack a NATO Country instead.

Yeh... sounds real likely... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Seems to me it's more an excuse from "the usual suspects" to stand by and do nothing, in some kind of selfish belief that we should keep all our equipment to ourselves, not help Ukraine and just "cross our fingers" and hope it doesn't embolden Putin (AND China) to push further and further.

Beggar's belief.
 
Most people born into the decades before German reunification and the fall of the iron curtain remained deeply suspicious of Russia. Particularly when the benevolent Gorbachev was deposed and the drunk Yeltsin took over to be followed by ex KGB comrade Putin. Russia has never been on friendly terms with the'west' has always taken an opposite stance on geopolitics trying to destabilise it's neighbours. It has been a long time coming (since 1945) but if cold war turns to hot war it is not too surprising in my view.
 
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