Russian Tensions

November 2024 Forums General discussion Russian Tensions

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  • #227586

    “YMS, as our war games expert, does this make sense as a strategy? It does seem to be that that is their strategy, cynical and a mug’s game for those called upon to die for the Ukrainian state as it is.”

    It’s pretty much the strategy in Palestine, and in any asymmetric war (and it is kind of the foundational principle of guerrilla war, keep the enemy engaged until a real army arrives).

    As a minimal, and rational strategy, making the cost of Russian victory as high as possible makes sense. The problem is, I think the Kremlin is prepared to pay a high price: I didn’t think they’d start the war, since Ukraine has a sizeable modern army, losses would be inevitably heavy.

    The Pentagon is quoting about 10% losses for Russia, which is about par for a modern full-on war (Iraq was preceded by ten years of siege to avoid that sort of level of casualties). Even if that sort of death rate continues, even if Ukrainians are killing more Russians than they lose, Ukraine will eventually fall to attrition: possibly Russia might back off due to the sanctions, but I suspect not, and full mobilisation might occur.

    #227587
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Well Robbo, it was a bonding experience: together in nature.

    😀

    #227589
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    #227590
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    #227591
    ALB
    Keymaster

    ‘There are moments in history,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said this week, “when the great struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight in one place, which is waged for all of humanity.”’

    So that’s what it is all about ! I was wondering. The struggle between Good and Evil, perhaps even the last and final one. In other words Amaggedon as “the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil”, “the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgement.”

    Who is this Christian Freeland? Is she a Jehovah Witness?

    I looked her upon Wikipedia and the Canadian Deputy Prime Minister is not a JW but something else emerged:

    “Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak (Ukrainian: Mykhailo Khomiak), had been a journalist before World War II. During the war in Nazi-occupied Poland and later in Nazi-occupied Austria he was chief editor of the Ukrainian antisemitic daily newspaper Krakivs’ki visti (News of Krakow) for the Nazi regime. After Chomiak’s death in 1984, John-Paul Himka, a professor of history at the University of Alberta, who was Chomiak’s son-in-law (and also Freeland’s uncle by marriage), used Chomiak’s records, including old issues of the newspaper, as the basis of several scholarly papers focused on the coverage of Soviet mass-murders of Ukrainian civilians. These papers also examined the use of these massacres as propaganda against Jews. In 2017, when Russian-affiliated websites[which?] further publicized Chomiak’s connection to Nazism, Freeland and her spokespeople responded by claiming that this was a Russian disinformation campaign during her appointment to the position of minister of foreign affairs. Her office later denied Chomiak ever collaborated with the Nazi Germany. However, reporting by The Globe and Mail showed that Freeland had known of her grandfather’s Nazi ties since at least 1996, when she helped edit a scholarly article by Himka for the Journal of Ukrainian Studies.”

    Apparently her links (not just family) with Ukrainian ultranationalists in Canada are well known.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by ALB.
    #227593
    IDriveADamnBuick
    Participant

    Astonishing to read of war re-enactments and bovine intercourse. It could only happen on the WSM Forum. But look, when socialists are threatened with death for refusing to take sides in the latest of capitalism’s squalid wars, what’s the party line?

    I was reading Alan Johnstone’s piece on “War On War” or something…I like his work, mostly, but he said something about socialists taking up arms to defend our class interests. Let me suggest a hypothetical situation…

    This whole situation kicks off big-time. The lies and propaganda are swallowed wholesale by our fellow members of the working class. I’m in the pub putting the case for socialism and a fellow member of the working class tries to shut me up because I’ve offended his deeply held belief that this is somehow his country.

    He’s had a lot to drink and is so far from rational that in order to be any further from rational he’d have to step back towards rational in order to move away again.

    He tells me that I’m either with him or against him. He’s going to kill me if I don’t kill him first…

    What’s the party line? Can we justifiably kill for socialism?

    #227594
    Wez
    Participant

    To ‘ALB’S driver’ – Simple, don’t talk to drunks about politics.

    #227595
    IDriveADamnBuick
    Participant

    Hilarious. Only the SPGB keeps me laughing! (I did wonder what responses my screen-name might evoke.)

    But wait! Drunk people can be convinced of the case for socialism, no?

    And you haven’t answered my question. Sometimes you can’t avoid drunk people when putting the case for the abolition of the wages system. And sometimes, with drunken shitwitted buffoons, they want to offer you violence. I’m interested in what the party line might be.

    Or should I ask the Executioner Committee?

    #227596
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    CNBC:

    “If Russia attacks Western arms shipments … it takes the conflict to a new level, of NATO vs. Russia,” Timothy Ash, senior emerging markets sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, said on Saturday, adding that a “critical moment in this conflict [is] coming up.”

    #227597
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    #227598
    IDriveADamnBuick
    Participant

    What, in the name of Marx, is a senior emerging markets sovereign strategist? FFS. Every moment in this conflict is critical. It’s like a chess game played by demented members of the SWP. (Oh, that’s all of them.) One miscalculation and it’s game over. We need no ‘experts’ to tell us this.

    #227599
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    As Davi Niven said: You can not bullshit a bullshitter. I do not think that Russia is going to attack a NATO convoy carrying weapons for Ukraine. This war has shown that Russia is not so strong as they were saying, their power rest on its atomic arsenals, but economically it heavily depends on foreign capital and oil export, it is not a very diversified economic

    #227600
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60711211

    Is Russia recruiting mercenaries?

    #227602

    No-one would disagree that in the drunkard scenario, if you believe your life to be in jeopardy, you may use the necessary force – up to and including slaying the aggressor – to defend it.

    Likewise, whilst we believe we have a route to peaceful socialism, should a recalcitrant minority try to prevent us, we shall use the minimum necessary force to defend ourselves, just as existing social structures would do for enforcing their rules over parking fines.

    As wars between states are antithetical to the interests of the working class – destroying lives and livelihoods, we argue that workers should act in such a way as to end the inter state conflict. We take the same approach to wars between mafia gangs.

    #227603
    Anonymous
    Inactive
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