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Posted
6 hours ago, kwonitoy said:

Profiting from making things to kill humans is not a "benefit" for humanity. If the same amount of money used to build the factories and pay the people that work in them was used for actual "benefit" of humanity, we'd all be better off.

Humans are a weird species, rewarding the makers of death and destruction far more than those that want to make society better.

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Posted
18 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Profiting from making things to kill humans is not a "benefit" for humanity. If the same amount of money used to build the factories and pay the people that work in them was used for actual "benefit" of humanity, we'd all be better off.

Humans are a weird species, rewarding the makers of death and destruction far more than those that want to make society better.

If the poster that is confused about my post ( you know who you are ) says what it is about my post that is confusing, I shall do my best to explain the reasons that war is not a good thing for humanity.

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Posted
On 9/6/2024 at 7:35 AM, Bkk Brian said:

What's that got to do with stray Russian drones going off target and into Belarus airspace, of course they will shoot them down..jeez

 

You didn't even bother to read the link

 

Yes, this is  a likely explanation. Another is that they may have been misidentified,. Belarus and Russia  air intervention system operators are  scared. They obviously want to protect their nations, but are also worried about being blamed if  a  drone or missile  gets through their screens. Morale cannot be  great.

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Posted

https://archive.is/Jq8cP

 

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has triggered doubts among Russian elite, spy chiefs say

 

Tucked away in this article is an interesting implied aside about prorities. The western view will be we need to get Ukraine "finished" not "as long as it takes".

 

Despite the threat posed by Russia and the risk of conflagration in the Middle East, both Burns and Moore stressed that their biggest challenge was China’s rise.

Burns said the funds that the CIA devoted to China had tripled over the past three years to 20 per cent of the agency’s budget, and that he had travelled twice to China over the past year for talks to “avoid unnecessary misunderstandings”.

Moore described regular contact with his Chinese counterparts as “essential”.

 

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Posted
5 hours ago, Patong2021 said:

 

A deluded claim and one that is misleading. China is far more implicated in international conflict than western nations including the USA.   China conceals its weapons sales, while western nations are transparent and are subject to review and conduct/use conditions.

 

The official Chinese policy of non-interference, applied to potential arms buyers, means that China will sell weapons and security equipment to a state without regard to its internal political situation or the repressiveness of the regime.It is the preferred weapons supplier of pariah states. China supplies weapons to Myanmar where they are used by the  brutal despot military  regime against its own people.

China is the principal (sole) supplier of tactical ballistic missiles to Africa. These are  powerful weapons of war and  allow conflicts to be more aggressive and deadly. Western countries have intentionally avoided supplying these missiles. 

 

China prices its arms  to undercut international competitors. Prior to the Ukraine weapons requirements of Russia and Ukraine, China's principal competitor was both Russia and Ukraine, especially Russia. China intentionally sold at the lowest possible price to buy market share. This is the same  strategy China has used with other industrial sectors such as EV vehicles, solar power supplies, textiles, and consumer electronics.

 

China  does not co-operate with the UN arms monitoring efforts and  is late in reporting arms sales to sanctioned regions. Often the information is incomplete or not reliable. 

 

 

A compelling case can be made to identify China as a leading contender.

Unlike western countries, Chinese expansionism has often  been the reason for war. Western militaries have typically acted under international authorization. For example, the Korean War initiated by China and its puppet North Korean secessionists featured heavy Chinese attacks and bombings of South Korea. Western militaries were acting under the authority of the United Nations and were not the US military or  UK or Thai military when they participated. Legally, it was a defensive action authorized by the world against the war waging Chinese. Similarly, when the US was involved in the liberation of  (ungrateful and unappreciative) Kuwait, it was done under the authority of the United Nations.

China has launched wars against Tibet, Myanmar, India and Vietnam.

 

 

The comments  should be put in perspective. He is the CEO of an arms manufacturer. It is his role to encourage the support and expansion of his firm. If there was not an issue, the government would not have been supporting the expansion of his firm and the building of a new state of the art munitions plants.  In his comments  where you emphasize  the year timeline you ignore that he also states "We are fine in three, four years - but to be really prepared, we need 10 years,"   The fact is that since the comment   made in February, the EU has already reached an annual  production capacity of 1 million 155mm artillery shells, and  allocated  another €500 million to its ASAP program to expand capacity again.   Yes, Russia has  an estimated 3 million shell production capacity, but it comes at a significant cost to the Russian economy. Russia is mass producing in haste resulting in a high number of duds and defective munitions. Worse is the diversion of  funding away from critical infrastructure and social services. The Russian  capacity  is being paid for with the  future of Russia's youth.

 

Meanwhile, the USA is quickly closing in on an annual production of 1.2 million  155mm shells.  The USA will have increased its production of artillery shells by 500% within two years. The UK will also boost its 155mm shell production 8X once the new BAE  facility is complete in 2025. Sweden has increased its production capacity, and once the Canadian government stops dithering, its manufacturing capabilities will be added.

 

The most important takeaway is that the free world has ramped up in a responsible manner, protecting their economies  and environments and  ensuring sustainable production goals. The manufacturing is spread across multiple nations, while Russian production is still concentrated at a few mega toxic smoke polluting facilities that poison the local areas.  The Free world is planning for the long term while Putin and his cronies are just concerned about  surviving for another year.

Quite a piece of work - tldr we must get ready to fight China as they are far to successfull at keeping their heads down and making stuff (like the cheap tech we are writing this on ) and because US must always have an existential threat  to keep the militray indistrial complex humming. Pax Americana - oops we just destroyed a country with the best intentions ! Besides which the China wars you mention are skirmishes and border disputes in their backyard whatever the rights and wrongs of them they are utterly dwarfed by US adventurism. I despair for humanity - the world is boiling yet bright minds want more weapons.

 

Oh and the Korean War is historic irelevant when arguing about modern China.

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Posted
46 minutes ago, Mavideol said:

Opinion - Does the media bear some responsibility for lives lost in Ukraine?

https://au.yahoo.com/news/opinion-does-media-bear-responsibility-160000896.html

 

Your link leads to one of those articles that I normally qoute sowing seeds of doubt in the mainstream narrative and he also likes Elon Musk. But thanks for the heads up and it shows I read everything and consider it.

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Posted
14 minutes ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

According to Fortune magazine, the Russian economy is coming under serious strain.

 

An economic catastrophe is lurking beneath Russia’s GDP growth as Putin ‘throws everything into the fireplace’

As long as he can keep the Silovik happy - estimated to be around 5 million then his security state will hold. Mynamar and DPRK are utter basket cases yet the leadership maintains their iron grip. The rest of Russia will muddle along with their dirt allotments and baked in mother Russia nationalism and misery.

 

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

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Posted
1 hour ago, TedG said:

Putin can’t win the war in Ukraine.  

Nor can he in military terms lose when Ukraine runs out of manpower and weapons before Russia does. We are at a classic deadly stalemate but Russia probably having a narrow edge.

 

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA2510-1.html

 

In short, both sides believe that their relative power, and thus ability to prevail, will improve over time. The centrality of Western assistance to Ukraine's war effort, and the uncertainty about the future of that assistance, has led Moscow and Kyiv to different conclusions about which of the two will gain the upper hand over time. The conflict is therefore not resolving the information problem in the way that the literature leads us to expect; both sides have grounds for optimism about the possibility of making gains by continuing to fight. Historically this kind of mutual optimism has made wars difficult to end.[49]

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Posted

For data wonks that want a deep dive into the Russian MIC. Here's a newly released report

 

ESD is a Mittler Report Verlag (MRV) publication, with history dating back to 1789.

Since January 2015 ESD has evolved into a top-quality, global bimonthly print publication. Supplemented fortnightly by ESD Spotlight, the on-line Security and Defence newsletter, distribution tripled in 2015 and both ESD and ESD Spotlight continue to be the fastest-growing publications in the international Defence & Security field. 

 

https://euro-sd.com/2024/09/articles/40149/inside-russias-2024-military-industrial-complex/

 

It is worth noting is that the modern Russian MIC was built on the remnants of the Soviet military industry, which was designed to operate under pressure and produce huge volumes of equipment in a protracted conflict with NATO. While much of this was either unused, neglected or lost in the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2010s saw significant recapitalisation of this dormant potential. While output figures are in key sectors such as new-build tank production are still far below Soviet levels, nonetheless, this still leaves Russia with fairly high output for many key systems compared to many other countries. This relative advantage over Ukraine has most evidently been leveraged through Russia’s adoption of an attritional warfare strategy in Ukraine.

 

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