Oh, my God, that 40 miles convoy. A crawling duck, but sadly no Warthogs in sight. It's a shame.

Yes, it's a terrible shame that NATO is not engaging in a full on fight with a nuclear adversary.

Since I've already addressed this point further down the thread, which can't have escaped your notice, it's rather pointless trying to pin me down on this position. I was in your back before you arrived.

But you tried nonetheless, I give you that. Brave but dead.

Yes, NATO donating some training and a couple of A-10s would be an interesting move. Obviously it is never going to be that simple.

The Russians showed the 'tactical nuke' card. So NATO won't get involved with more than a few AT Weapons here and there at max.

Lavrov said, they didn't threaten with nukes.That means they did. That creature was bred and selected over decades for such jobs.

Actually I just indulge in fantasies of burning bastards.

You are not alone in that I think there are quite a few people that would like a little bit of quiet quality time with a certain dictator.

If it were just a certain dictator, the Ides of March are just around the corner. But, as you mentioned, it's not that simple.

Russians are in favor of Putin. And of course, the apparatus has been driving up approval ratings for him for months before this stunt. And now most Russian don't know anything from independent sources, some probably didn't even heard about that Ukraine Peace Operation. A lot of them just believe the whole narrative, because, well, it's the decadent West that says otherwise and 'they want to hold us down. They always do.'

So even if there is a fraction in the apparatus at all that would or could act, there alway looms the danger of a civil war for them.

Civil war in Russia is pretty much a given at some point. This can't go on forever. Though, it has gone on long enough that maybe that is based on a faulty assumption: that in the longer term the world trends to improvement. That might not be the case, we may be able to reach some local maximum and then fall back again.

Civil war? Majority supports the invasion, the rest is indifferent, and 0.1% are protesting (soon to be jailed).

Note the 'at some point': Russia can't go on like this, regardless of whatever popular support Putin has at this point in time. It's about as meaningful as the support for Kim in NK.

It's not the problem what we think they can get away with. The problem is what they think they can can get away with. And in what time frame. They obviously operate in a different frame of reference. Their military doctrine is also different from ours, apart from the obvious shortcomings at the moment. But it doesn't matter militaryly, they don't fight us, they fight the Ukraine. Because of their bloody nukes. A shame Patton was right in his motivation to stop the Soviets. That would have been before they get nukes themselves.

They have set the anchor in these negotiations between us and them. They want status quo ante 1997. They will at least get Ukraine. Perhaps Moldavia.

And they created chaos. Which always also bears opportunity.

And China will wait.

> They want status quo ante 1997

They can want whatever they want, doesn't mean they are going to get it.

> They don't fight us, they fight the Ukraine.

They don't fight us, they fight Poland!

This sort of thing doesn't really work.

Poland is NATO, other ballpark.

>> They can want whatever they want, doesn't mean they are going to get it.

They won't.

>> This sort of thing doesn't really work.

They somehow missed that.

They will pay.

I think you missed the reference.

Looks like.

Fog of War.

Watched a YouTube video and one of the people simply couldn't believe that Putin would attack Ukraine, even when shown pictures of the attacks, their line was "but they're Russian speakers like us, he wouldn't do that".

One of about 8 people seemed to genuinely support Putin (something like "he knows what he's doing, this is necessary").

Obviously just a vox pop but in general it seemed few supported the aggression and most were just afraid to talk about it.

True. But I'm afraid there are several issues and training is not a 2 day affair even if the other issues didn't exist

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/03/no-the-us-air-force-isnt...

Huh? Don’t we have some servicemen on vacation in Ukraine right now? They’re just there on holiday, sightseeing in their A10.

PUTIN: These guys were on a holiday there

THE WORLD: gasps

UK: These guys were on a holiday there

THE WORLD: claps

Or as the saying goes "Rules for thee and not for me".

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30488680

Ah, good that you re-posted it; your [0] is too old to respond to. Here, let me fix that for you:

   PUTIN: These guys were on a holiday there (but actually conducting a war of aggression).

   THE WORLD: Gasps in righteous indignation.

   UK: These guys were on a holiday there (but actually defending against a war of aggression).

   THE WORLD: Claps at the brave defenders.

Or as the saying goes, "Don't sell me a turd in a bun as a hot dog, I ain't buying it".

There, fixed that for you.

(OK, except for the "saying"; I just made that up. But, something along those lines. As is, it seems to fit both Putler's blatant immoral lies, the West's equally blatant but morally defensible ones, and your whataboutish equivalizing of the two.)

Absolutely right you are, sir.

We all have to thank the Russians to have shown the world in 2014 how to do it. And before that. And also to give us a great opportunity for Whataboutism.

Sigh, I probably still have those Bezmenov brochures from the early eighties lying around somewhere.

It is always funny how people can legitimize anything if it is used against the people they don't like.

"Bombing civilians" is unacceptable if they are from "Europe" like Ukraine.

"Bombing civilians" is fine if they are savages from Middle East, Africa or "not-Europe", like Russia.

Wow, an early deployment of the Racism card. Bold move, congratulation.

But then again, do you really think anybody is still reading this deep in the thread? They're already bored, no shiny tech, just endless babble.

But okay, your next move, Godwin’s law.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%E2%80%99s_law

Game over.

> still reading this deep in the thread

Yet here you are.

> your next move

But.. you invoked it yourself.

"Game over"

This. Absolutely this. And especially for the Warthog.

But, hey, there are flight simulators out there, aren't there?

No, obviously. It's daydreaming at best.