Janster
20661
It sure as heck is, its maybe the most important factor, its what governs how you want things to end up, and it also makes you consider what you like the most, principles or food, its easy to sit on an island and observe the world, its different to sit nextdoor.
Ofcourse the mobilization will be a shit show, I have never questioned that, I just want you to know, that the 1 million man thing…is real, and will happen unless peace is brokered, and I don’t see that on the table now, I don’t even know how that would be feasible now…
Yes, that’s what I said, right there in that bold part.
Yes, it’s very clear: You want Ukraine to be forced to trade their territory and people and future security for ‘peace’, and you want that because it is better for you, and that is why you argue that Russian victory is inevitable and imminent.
Sure looks that way. Tankie because it’s expensive. I get it but it’s a bad look for Mr Lazerpig.
Janster
20664
**[quote=“scottagibson, post:20662, topic:133719, full:true”]
Yes, that’s what I said, right there in that bold part.
Yes, it’s very clear: You want Ukraine to be forced to trade their territory and people and future security for ‘peace’, and you want that because it is better for you, and that is why you argue that Russian victory is inevitable and imminent.
[/quote]
I argue the realities of the conflict, I don’t want Russia to win, or Putin to achieve his goals.
I like Lazerpigs videos, they are fun and on the point, Perun is dryer but more factual, Task and Purpose has some good points at times, well worth your time, do use it to get a bit of perspective mkay?
**
I think you’ve made your motivation clear. I could be wrong — I do find it hard to follow you sometimes — but you’ll have to explain it more clearly to change my mind. Otherwise there isn’t any point to reading your prognostications or taking them seriously.
Janster
20666
I write on small phone sometimes and on the go, its not perfect, I have to sit down at the office in order to write more thought out stuff.
I refer to the task and purpose video for info on how I think…
Putin is going to double down on things, he has no choice, its win or die for him, so of course its going to go that way, and I don’t know how long it will take for the Russian people to wake up, support for this war is pretty high…so eh, there is that.
Western media has been portraying the mobilization as a shit-show, but just like those ballistic missiles they should have run out of in May, it maybe dangerous to subject yourself to wishful thinking.
It may mess up how we can effectively help Ukraine in the future.
jsnell
20667
As usual, Janster links to sources that don’t match his outlandish claims at all. That video does not predict a million men on the front, reiterates the sorry state of the mobilized troops and their equipment, and suggests maybe 50k of the newly mobilized troops could be effective for offensive operations.
Grifman
20668
Janster, here’s the issue that you never address. Let’s assume the Russians can raise a million men, arm them with AK’s and uniforms, 100 rounds of ammo, and get them to the trenches. Then what?
How do they supply these guys with food? How do they cook enough food and get it to them? What about potable water? What about more ammo? In a few days these guys are going to hungry, thirsty and out of ammo. And because supplying an army is a complicated task, if they assign some of these untrained troops to logistics, they’ll be useless as they haven’t been trained in those areas.
The point is, a guy in a uniform and an AK is going to be absolutely useless in less than a week. He’s going to be out of ammo, hungry and thirsty, and combat incapable. At that point he’s either going to surrender, desert, or just walk to the rear looking for supplies. You keep asserting the Russians can pull this off. Yet I have yet to see you describe how they can overcome these difficulties nor do you cite any western military analyst who believes they can do this.
You need to do a lot more than say the Russians just need to give the million men AK’s, uniforms and some ammo and put them in trenches to back up your assertion and come close to even making an argument that might begin to convince most of us here. Until you can do that, it’s hard to take your “million man” assertions seriously.
It’s all motivated reasoning — see above — which means it is immune to argument. The war causes him personal pain, which means it must end now, which means Ukraine must accept a deal before Russia crushes them, which means Russia must be about to crush them.
To be fair, @Janster does make one solid point, even if somewhat implicitly. People living in Europe are experiencing a very different set of consequences from this conflict. The economic impacts of the war are not trivial, and in absolute terms, yes, it is far easier to view the war dispassionately from far away. Where things go off the rails a bit is in the details, which may be due to composing on the go on a phone, or things like that. Details like this forum having substantial numbers of people posting from Europe, or having substantial numbers of people with long-time experience in various aspects of analysis or even practice in relevant fields.
Most of all, I think there is a difficulty in reading tone over the Internet. I dare say that if we were all in a room together talking, there would be a lot less nasty back and forth. Admittedly, we have what we have, and many of @Janster’s posts have caused some understandable head scratching if not worse, but I do think it is very reasonable to remind us–however maladroitly–that what we don’t know is greater than what we do know, and that every Ukrainian gain has to be considered against its cost, both to Ukraine and to the people of the nations supporting Kyiv. Not that the level of sacrifice is in any way equivalent, of course. But then, I think it’s fair to acknowledge that we in the USA have not had to pay much of a price at all for supporting Ukraine.
So I can see how from a particular POV our steadfast rejection of any Ukrainian surrender of territory or other sort of concessions to the nation that has been ravaging them for eight months can rub the wrong way. I don’t agree with that take, nor with the somewhat simplistic calculus that goes with it, but I do understand it.
abrandt
20671
He’s made it pretty clear in the past that supplying an army is the easy part. Sure there is a huge volume of serious work that would tell you it’s actually the hardest part, but for some reason that doesn’t matter.
@scottagibson has Janster actually advocated for Ukraine to negotiate a peace soon? I don’t recall seeing anything like that(maybe just implied in the insistence Ukraine can’t take another inch of territory?) so I’ve struggled to understand what he’s actually advocating for. Part of why those posts leave me so confused is I can never put together a coherent picture of his views.
I think you are overreacting.
I don’t know here you live, but, EU gas prices are now at levels comparable to 2021 (before the war, although 2021 was already a bad year). Winter is being mild and reserves are holding. While next year might again be difficult, so far I’d say the impact has been quite bearable and public opinion polls do not show significant worry.
Given we have cut ties with Russia energy-wise, I’m at a loss on where they can “hurt us bad again soon” short of direct confrontation.
I think that is what this is:
Of course I could be wrong, but taken together with his stated personal motivation here, that’s what I get:
He’s free to clear that up, of course. I haven’t ignored him, but I’m not really going to pay much attention to his analyses given the apparent motivation for them.
KevinC
20674
That’s not what he’s doing or saying, though. For months it’s been that we’re all misinformed by Western media and he has the real truth which we refuse to see.
People have been refuting his arguments but they’re doing so in the form of debate or discussion. “I think you are incorrect, because of X, Y, and Z. Please explain how X, Y, and Z can be overcome”. He then returns to shout the same claims without addressing any of those points. At most you might get a “well that’s the easy part” hand wave and then it’s back to a million men with AKs.
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It’s motivated reasoning, so you’re not going to be able to rebut it with argument. I still think wrong ideas should be opposed, but the “million men” stuff isn’t the actual wrong idea. The actual wrong idea is that Ukraine should make a bad deal to end the war. The “million men” stuff is just a way to rationalize the wrong idea.
ShivaX
20676
In the US Army logistics is like 40% of the Army.
But, sure, it’s easy as pie.
Assuming Russia could be just as competent as the US (lmao), they’d need 300k-400k more dudes just to run logistics for the other million.
abrandt
20677
And trucks and organization and communication
ShivaX
20678
I filed that under the “just as competent” part, hence the laughing. Russia’s actual logistics are basically trains and nothing else.
abrandt
20679
Yep, and now the rail line in the south is vulnerable and being on the defensive in static positions means they probably don’t have much left they can pillage from the nearby villages.
Welp, you wake up and see that the Ukraine Thread has 50 new posts and you reckon that there must be some interesting information about last night’s infrastructure attacks or the interesting flanking attack on the peninsula. Time to grab some coffee!
Oh. No, it’s just more back and forth with Janster.
Bummer. Off to the Twitter feeds!
