Ukraine War

[qldfrog]

For anyone interested in news with a hint of truth about that mess,
indian based with a defence focus.

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EurAsian Times - Get The Latest Online News On Defense, Defence, Geopolitics, Military News, Air Force News.

eurasiantimes.com

I learn more thru this media than from our US sided news, or the other side..

 

[JohnDe]

Not good.

"Mr Xi has cynically proposed a “peace plan” for Ukraine that would reward Russian aggression and which he knows Ukraine will not accept. It calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”, but neglects to mention that Russia occupies more than a sixth of its neighbour."​

The world according to Xi​

Even if China’s transactional diplomacy brings some gains, it contains real perils​

Alesser man than Xi Jinping might have found it uncomfortable. Meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, China’s leader spoke of “peaceful co-existence and win-win co-operation”, while supping with somebody facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes. But Mr Xi is untroubled by trivial inconsistencies. He believes in the inexorable decline of the American-led world order, with its professed concern for rules and human rights. He aims to twist it into a more transactional system of deals between great powers. Do not underestimate the perils of this vision—or its appeal around the world.

On Ukraine China has played an awkward hand ruthlessly and well. Its goals are subtle: to ensure Russia is subordinate but not so weak that Mr Putin’s regime implodes; to burnish its own credentials as a peacemaker in the eyes of the emerging world; and, with an eye on Taiwan, to undermine the perceived legitimacy of Western sanctions and military support as a tool of foreign policy. Mr Xi has cynically proposed a “peace plan” for Ukraine that would reward Russian aggression and which he knows Ukraine will not accept. It calls for “respecting the sovereignty of all countries”, but neglects to mention that Russia occupies more than a sixth of its neighbour.

This is just one example of China’s new approach to foreign policy, as the country emerges from zero-covid isolation to face a more unified West. On March 10th China brokered a detente between two bitter rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia—a first intervention in the Middle East, which highlighted the West’s reduced clout there 20 years after the American-led invasion of Iraq. On March 15th Mr Xi unveiled the “Global Civilisation Initiative”, which argues that countries should “refrain from imposing their own values or models on others and from stoking ideological confrontation.”

China’s approach is not improvised, but systematic and ideological. Deng Xiaoping urged China to “hide your capacities, bide your time”. But Mr Xi wants to reshape the post-1945 world order. China’s new slogans seek to borrow and subvert the normative language of the 20th century so that “multilateralism” becomes code for a world that ditches universal values and is run by balancing great-power interests. The “Global Security Initiative” is about opposing efforts to contain China’s military threat; the “Global Development Initiative” promotes China’s economic-growth model, which deals with autocratic states without imposing conditions. “Global Civilisation” argues that Western advocacy of universal human rights, in Xinjiang and elsewhere, is a new kind of colonialism.

This transactional worldview has more support outside the West than you may think. Later this month in Beijing Mr Xi will meet Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an advocate of a multipolar world, who wants China to help negotiate peace in Ukraine. To many, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 exposed the West’s double standards on international law and human rights, a point China’s state media are busy hammering home. After the Trump years, President Joe Biden has re-engaged with the world but the pivot to Asia involves downsizing elsewhere, including in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The West has shown resolve over Ukraine, but many countries are ambivalent about the war and wonder how it will end. At least 100 countries, accounting for 40% of global gdp, are not fully enforcing sanctions. American staying power is doubted. Neither Donald Trump nor Ron DeSantis, his Republican rival, sees Ukraine as a core American interest. All this creates space for new actors, from Turkey to the uae, and above all, China. Its message—that real democracy entails economic development, but does not depend on political liberty—greatly appeals to the elites of non-democratic countries.

It is important to assess what this mercenary multipolarity can achieve. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been fierce enemies ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979. China is the biggest export market for both, so it has clout and an incentive to forestall war in the Gulf, which is also its largest source of oil. The agreement it has helped broker may de-escalate a proxy war in Yemen that has killed perhaps 300,000 people. Or take climate change. Chinese mercantilist support for its battery industry is a catalyst for a wave of cross-border investment that will help lower carbon emissions.

Yet the real point of Mr Xi’s foreign policy is to make the world safer for the Chinese Communist Party. Over time, its flaws will be hard to hide. A mesh of expedient bilateral relationships creates contradictions. China has backed Iran but chosen to ignore its ongoing nuclear escalation, which threatens China’s other clients in the region. In Ukraine any durable peace requires the consent of Ukrainians. It should also involve accountability for war crimes and guarantees against another attack. China objects to all three: it does not believe in democracy, human rights or constraining great powers—whether in Ukraine or Taiwan. Countries that face a direct security threat from China, such as India and Japan, will grow even warier (see Asia section). Indeed, wherever a country faces a powerful, aggressive neighbour, the principle that might is right means that it will have more to fear.

Because China almost always backs ruling elites, however inept or cruel, its approach may eventually outrage ordinary people around the world. Until that moment, open societies will face a struggle over competing visions. One task is to stop Ukraine being pushed into a bogus peace deal, and for Western countries to deepen their defensive alliances, including nato. The long-run goal is to rebut the charge that global rules serve only Western interests and to expose the poverty of the worldview that China—and Russia—are promoting.

America’s great insight in 1945 was that it could make itself more secure by binding itself to lasting alliances and common rules. That idealistic vision has been tarnished by decades of contact with reality, including in Iraq. But the Moscow summit reveals a worse alternative: a superpower that seeks influence without winning affection, power without trust and a global vision without universal human rights. Those who believe this will make the world a better place should think again.

 

[JohnDe]

 

[noirua]

Https://historylearning.com/world-war-two/causes-of-ww2/scrap-of-paper/
Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0uOsPBSKPo
Https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/137222/
<a href='Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0v1NtYBKAE' target='window'>Https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0v1NtYBKAE</a>
Neville Chamberlain ( Prime Minister UK until 1940 ) announced success that was in fact failure. Trust thee not China and Russia or any agreement whatsoever. They have decided their path and will do and sign anything to achieve that. President Putin points to Nazi Ukraine to disguise Nazi Russia.

 

[DB008]

Great summary

.​

 

[Sean K]

Geesh, If true and these things go into combat they'll get picked off by modern relatively small calibre munitions quite easily. Like 30mm.

Russia must be running out of their modern tanks to have to do this. They probably have thousands in storage, but they'll be sitting ducks.

 

[sptrawler]

I really can't see how anyone would sign up for the armed forces today, if a person steals a car runs through stop lights and kills a family, it is a driving conviction that gets what? 5 years.
A person is dropped into enemy territory, where people blow themselves up and take out all and sundry,to carry out work for the Government not knowing who the enemy is as they don't wear a uniform and then they get done for war crimes.
I hope it is all done above board, because IMO the soldiers are the pawns of government, how can a person manning a remote drone be less culpable than a soldier in field in hostile territory, shouldn't those who sent them in be just as culpable same as those who select the target for the drone pilot in the donga?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...by-extremists-court-told-20230327-p5cvlq.html
A former SAS soldier accused of murdering an Afghan man in a war crime has been granted a temporary court order preventing his name being published, after his lawyer argued he could be targeted in custody by Islamic extremists and their sympathisers.

The man was arrested a week ago, three years after the ABC’s Four Corners aired footage allegedly showing him gunning down a man in a wheat field during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012.

 

[IFocus]

I really can't see how anyone would sign up for the armed forces today, if a person steals a car runs through stop lights and kills a family, it is a driving conviction that gets what? 5 years.
A person is dropped into enemy territory, where people blow themselves up and take out all and sundry,to carry out work for the Government not knowing who the enemy is as they don't wear a uniform and then they get done for war crimes.
I hope it is all done above board, because IMO the soldiers are the pawns of government, how can a person manning a remote drone be less culpable than a soldier in field in hostile territory, shouldn't those who sent them in be just as culpable same as those who select the target for the drone pilot in the donga?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...by-extremists-court-told-20230327-p5cvlq.html
A former SAS soldier accused of murdering an Afghan man in a war crime has been granted a temporary court order preventing his name being published, after his lawyer argued he could be targeted in custody by Islamic extremists and their sympathisers.

The man was arrested a week ago, three years after the ABC’s Four Corners aired footage allegedly showing him gunning down a man in a wheat field during a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012.

IMHO the issues leading up to this situation and the people responsible (politicians / senior high command) are the ones who also should be on trial for the ridiculous high number of rotations and the break down of discipline in the field.

All of which apparently no one in the Australia officer ranks knew about unlike all the other nations also serving in Afghanistan who were warning about conduct of Australians in the field.

 

[sptrawler]

IMHO the issues leading up to this situation and the people responsible (politicians / senior high command) are the ones who also should be on trial for the ridiculous high number of rotations and the break down of discipline in the field.

All of which apparently no one in the Australia officer ranks knew about unlike all the other nations also serving in Afghanistan who were warning about conduct of Australians in the field.

Exactly and is the person who issues a drone strike which kills civilians, or a bomb drop that kills civilians, or a cruise missile that kills civilians any less culpable for murder in the field of war? Than someone who shoots a civilian in the theatre of war.
Is the severity of the crime against humanity, decided by how remote the killing is done from? If that were the case why are people who hire contract killers charged with murder?
We are a strange creature.

 

[SirRumpole]

The mind of the devil ? ...

Russian whose daughter drew anti-war picture flees ahead of two-year penal colony sentence

A Russian man who was investigated by police after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school flees as a court sentences him to two years in a penal colony.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Dona Ferentes]

The mind of collective devils

The spies did a better job than the armed forces (according to our spies)

Russian spies more effective than army, say experts

Russia's intelligence services have had more success in Ukraine than its army, says a top think tank.

www.bbc.com

 

[dyna]

For anyone interested in news with a hint of truth about that mess,

For anyone irritated by You Tube censorship , sign up for Discord . com then from menu on the left, "Sniper Hyde" , down to "Sean Odison" , "# announcements" first for his You Tube commentary ( his thick Scottish accent takes a bit of getting used to , but his obvious military background helps in explaining what's going on in the footage ) If the drone vid is censored e.g. insane solo russian's attack on an enemy trench, dated 23rd March, then go back to the menu on the left to " Sean Odison " , # raw combat footage " for the real deal.
Hope it helps. Cheers.

 

[mullokintyre]

The spies did a better job than the armed forces (according to our spies)

Russian spies more effective than army, say experts

Russia's intelligence services have had more success in Ukraine than its army, says a top think tank.

www.bbc.com

Was that the same set of spies that told Putin that they had lots of infiltrators in Ukraine who would disrupt everything and let the Russian army take over Ukraine within a week of the start of the invasion?
Mick

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Was that the same set of spies that told Putin that they had lots of infiltrators in Ukraine who would disrupt everything and let the Russian army take over Ukraine within a week of the start of the invasion?
Mick

That's in the article. They got their claws into Donetsk

 

[qldfrog]

More revealed by ukraine war than about that specific drama

Drones taking over fighter jets in air-to-air combat? Russia says 'yes' as it 'downs' Ukrainian Su-27

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk earlier predicted that future of wars would be carried out by UAVs and not fighter jets. ‘The fighter jet era has passed. Drone warfare is where the future will be. It’s not that I want the future to be – it’s just, this is what the future will be,’ he said

www.firstpost.com

Why i am so mad at seeing our country wasting 500+ billions yes....between glowing tin can in the seas anf fighter jets of another age.
Drones are the answer...

 

[Sean K]

More revealed by ukraine war than about that specific drama

Drones taking over fighter jets in air-to-air combat? Russia says 'yes' as it 'downs' Ukrainian Su-27

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk earlier predicted that future of wars would be carried out by UAVs and not fighter jets. ‘The fighter jet era has passed. Drone warfare is where the future will be. It’s not that I want the future to be – it’s just, this is what the future will be,’ he said

www.firstpost.com

Why i am so mad at seeing our country wasting 500+ billions yes....between glowing tin can in the seas anf fighter jets of another age.
Drones are the answer...

Yeah, I think you'll find the Ghost Bat (crap name) or advanced versions of it will go into mass production and the F35 will be the last manned fighter we will fly. I doubt we'll go to the full production of eight AUKUS SSNs, maybe four, and then we'll go UUVs.

 

[SirRumpole]

Article on cheap Ukrainian kamikaze drones causing havoc with Russian troops.

Ukraine's small, explosive 'Ferrari' drones are causing a buzz. What makes them so special?

Ukraine's small, cheap kamikaze racing drones have been around since last year, but are starting to cause a buzz — and a lot of damage. What makes them unique and why is their future "worrying"?

www.abc.net.au

 

[Sean K]

Article on cheap Ukrainian kamikaze drones causing havoc with Russian troops.

Ukraine's small, explosive 'Ferrari' drones are causing a buzz. What makes them so special?

Ukraine's small, cheap kamikaze racing drones have been around since last year, but are starting to cause a buzz — and a lot of damage. What makes them unique and why is their future "worrying"?

www.abc.net.au

Makes you wonder where this will end up when AI is operationalised into weapons, if that happens. There's probably a UN resolution been drafted as to how far autonomous weapons can go, if not already out there. Could end up like Terminator 3 if we're not careful.

edit: it was T3 that saw the rise of the machines with Skynet becoming self aware and making a first strike.

 

[Sean K]

While there's some good arguments that NATO encroachment east since the fall of the wall has cause Russia to invade Ukraine, I think they might have preferred not to have the Nordic States all united and opposed to Russia and joining NATO. The Kremlin is well and truly contained to its west now. It's going to be hard for them to even drive a ship out of port from the east without having various land based anti-ship missiles tracking them.

 

[Sean K]

Russia has just taken over the Presidency of the UN Security Council.

It happened on 1 April, but I don't think it's a joke.