Huge pro-EU rally grips Ukraine

[mapuc]

^ I'm telling this to my mom and she's stronger than you

[Catfish]

Das sag' ich meinem großen Bruder, der schreibt "doof" an Deine Tür.
Das geht NIE wieder ab!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It is entirely possible that Russia could overrun any of the Baltic states (the current favourite amongst analysts is Latvia) in short order and there would be little that NATO could do about it, and to be honest I've always had a bit of a hunch that the eastward expansion of NATO was always intended to be a bit of a buffer zone to trade land for response time for any potential Russian westward advance.
The trickier part is estimating what NATO would do when presented with a fait accompli by Moscow, there would have to be some kind of measure undertaken by NATO in retaliation in order to ensure the continued existence of the organisation, otherwise trust in NATO will hit an all time low if it is shown that it cannot and will not defend member nations.
It's good money that any retaliatory reponse by NATO would be pointed firmly at Kaliningrad, and what Russias response would be to the invasion of what it considers sovereign Russian soil is difficult to ascertain, needless to say it would likely involve continued escalation and the longer any conflict between NATO and Russia goes on, the more likely it is that one side will pop the nuclear cork, and from there it's limited escalation until someone either turns it off or we go full exchange and that's game over.

So ultimately the response to any Russian attack on the Baltics is probably the hardest decision that any organisation will have to take, and since NATO revolves around international agreement, and you can guarantee that there will be members of NATO who will not want to go to war with Russia over the Baltics, Germany probably, Norway and Iceland too since they would be in the firing line, Turkey is an unknown quantity at this stage, but the Eastern states would all be in favour of marching to Moscow and burning down the Kremlin, in fact it would be hard to stop them.
And while NATO is still deciding what to do next, little green men would probably appear in Talinn and Vilnius...

Whatever intentions Russia have it will make a move soon, if militarily and definitely before winter arrives.

'If' being the important factor/word here.

[mapuc]

I could be wrong

Do you know why NATO would hesitate in such a scenario where Russia invade Ukraine and all or some of the Baltic states

In the last 30-40 years I have heard, seen and read high ranked officer on both side saying A war between WP and NATO(From the old days) and today A war between NATO and Russia will end in a thermonuclear war.
The only difference is when this will happen.

And that could very well be the reason the outgrowing fear of a thermonuclear war if NATO would engage Russia if they invaded Some of the Baltic states or all of them-
you know the Oath in NATO-if one is attacked then every country in the alliance is attacked

If Russia do attack some of NATO's member-The Baltic states

The other countries in NATO will find a political excuse to avoid confrontation.

Markus

[August]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Because you've got something that I want and I'm stronger than you!

ACK ACK!

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I could be wrong

Do you know why NATO would hesitate in such a scenario where Russia invade Ukraine and all or some of the Baltic states

In the last 30-40 years I have heard, seen and read high ranked officer on both side saying A war between WP and NATO(From the old days) and today A war between NATO and Russia will end in a thermonuclear war.
The only difference is when this will happen.

And that could very well be the reason the outgrowing fear of a thermonuclear war if NATO would engage Russia if they invaded Some of the Baltic states or all of them-
you know the Oath in NATO-if one is attacked then every country in the alliance is attacked

If Russia do attack some of NATO's member-The Baltic states

The other countries in NATO will find a political excuse to avoid confrontation.

Markus

Thats was what I was trying to get across. If NATO confronted Russia over the Ukraine with conventional forces what would Russia's response be? Do still need to think like Ike?

The U.S. must be "willing to 'push its whole stack of chips into the pot' when such becomes necessary"

Eisenhower signed NSC 5810/1, which made it official U.S. policy to treat nuclear weapons "as conventional weapons; and to use them whenever required to achieve national objectives." "The only sensible thing for us to do was to put all our resources into our hydrogen bombs," he told the NSC.



approves

[Oberon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38807778

[Oberon]

Ukrainian An-26 gets some extra ventilation while over the Black Sea:





Commander William B. Ecker: Damn sparrows! Must have been migrating.
Petty Officer: Sparrows?
Commander William B. Ecker: I probably hit a couple of hundred of them. How many did you hit Bruce?
Lt. Bruce Wilhemy: Sparrows? A few I guess.
Petty Officer: Are these twenty millimeter or forty millimeter sparrows, sir?

[Catfish]

^ Oops.

Some understatement, reminded me of this:

[ikalugin]

If memory serves me right that town was on the front lines (and under fire) since 2014. It is just that now it is politically convenient to suddenly realise that there is a humanitarian problem in there, especially after Kiev loyalists launched an attack out of it into the separatist held territories.

Also, they blame everything on Russia, how cute of them, and if you disagree - you must be an agent of Putin. The reason why this is so amusing is because it leads to agents of Putin trying to jail the agents of Putin for harming Putin's agent's interests. An example of this process is Savchenko - you may remember her being trialled in Russia some time ago, with a massive campaighn to free her (which sort of gave her a seat in the parlament in attempt to give her imunity), now she is - you guessed it, agent of Putin and traitor to Ukraine.

[Catfish]

It is old news that the US were involved in trying to overthrow the government.
And of course "we" blame everything on Russia.
But you have to admit that, since the whole thing was somehow screwed up by those secret services, Russia has been the beneficiary.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I could be wrong

Do you know why NATO would hesitate in such a scenario where Russia invade Ukraine and all or some of the Baltic states

In the last 30-40 years I have heard, seen and read high ranked officer on both side saying A war between WP and NATO(From the old days) and today A war between NATO and Russia will end in a thermonuclear war.
The only difference is when this will happen.

And that could very well be the reason the outgrowing fear of a thermonuclear war if NATO would engage Russia if they invaded Some of the Baltic states or all of them-
you know the Oath in NATO-if one is attacked then every country in the alliance is attacked

If Russia do attack some of NATO's member-The Baltic states

The other countries in NATO will find a political excuse to avoid confrontation.

Markus

One should not take it for granted that Wetsern natiosn stand in line for mutual Western-Rssian destruction just to defend a small tiny place - however lovely it may be - like for exmaple Lithuania. The residents in this country are rightfully worried, I think, and the Ukraine was the laboratory experiment by which Russia tested how to take over a place without triggering strong NATO replies.

What holds Russia back, is not military fear of NATO, but economic concerns.

Conventionally, the Eastern European countries of NATO currently are undefendable. Lets say that in all clarity.

The only militaries in Europe that indeed are war-capable currently, are the British, the French, and the Turkish ones. Also, they are "used" to it. The German IS NOT. Thats not just my impression, but that is the feedback of insiders that I have gotten repeatedly over the past 20 years. We have de-armed way too much.

That German defence ministress von der Leyen on her visit to Lithuania two days ago, had to fly back not with the German pride, the Airbus A400M - "The most advanced military transport in the world!!!" - but had to be shuttled out in a 50 years old Transall the Airbus should replace, because that damn thing A400M once again broke down, is symptomatic.

I am hating the A400M since many years. Incompetence in the ministry's planning, incometence in the producer's assembling. Awful project, and a money-grave. Terrible plane. Next time simply buy the C130. But the Germans allways want the "eierlegende Wollmilchsau".

[Catfish]

The A440m is ot bad at all, it just has some teething problems

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Catfish

The A440m is ot bad at all, it just has some teething problems

Yeah but all its teeth are rotten

[Catfish]

Each and every plane type had and has problems during development
The new turboprop engines are the most powerful in the world, a lot of brand-new technology went into it, and it seems the problems have already been found, but they have not updated each plane yet. Then: software. Not helpful to have an auto switch-off of engines due to a manufacturing error of course, but not a design fault.

Much less noisy than a jet-powered AC, more than 10,000 hp from each (!)engine, full stop in ten seconds after touching ground, able to land in the desert without runway.



Not too bad i think. If they get the trouble sorted out..