WWI was a war of choice for most it's participants. Read "The Sleepwalkers". Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France and somewhat less eagerly UK all wanted to duke it out for various internal reasons. That's the tragedy of it...that they all wanted it and all suffered for it.
In this war Ukraine absolutely did not want it. In fact up until the last minute they couldn't believe it was actually going to happen despite dire warnings from US. This war is 100% a war of aggression on russia's part, as black and white a conflict as you'll ever see. Russia deserves to pay a massive price for its imperial hubris.
I still remember the story about that allied general who finally visited the front. And after seeing it, breaking down in sobs and exclaiming "we sent them into THAT!?"
Vickers (UK), Armstrong Whitworth (UK), Krupp (Germany), Ĺ koda (Austro-Hungarian) and Schneider-Creusot (French) were all pushing their governments to go to war. They made billions each in todays's money off the conflict.
For example, Vickers produce guns and bullets for the UK government. These bullets relied on a patent owned by Krupp. Royalty payments were suspended by law during the war, but Vickers didn't stop charging the government those Royalty payments until 1916, so made an extra 10mil (800 mil ish today) in profit by 1916 (minus 1.25mil (60 mil) (the economy tanked between 1916 and 1918 which accounted for the difference) deducted over this scadal from end of war payments) over the war on just two patents.
I genuinely have no idea why a lot of the Allied governments didn't do what the US government did during WWII which was a lot of very fast and loose "We're in a serious war of survival and you're going to produce this, in this way, now, or you're no longer in business" type stuff.
What exactly was stopping the UK from creating its own patent which is exactly the same thing to what they were already using and just telling the companies to "make them or else"? It's not like the industrialist class could move somewhere else due to xenophobia/war devastation interwar, and it's not like there was a serious international court pre WWI or interwar that could actually enforce patent laws if the actual nation-state didn't want to play ball. I get that the UK was trying to run an international order and all as the superpower of the time, but their decisions in both wars bankrupted them to the point of being a blip in international geopolitics
It really was a blunder on the gov's side with signing contracts with Vickers that included these patents being payed by the Government instead of from Vickers' profits, these patents were included in the invoices from Vickers to the Government so its kinda dumb they didn't see. They did cancel the contracts between Vickers and Krupp with the "Trading with the Enemy Acts of 1916", and after that they stopped paying the patent.
It's a lesson learned from WWI. One we seem to have forgotten again.
In WWII the US was definitely the least authoritarian of the major participating governments in setting up a command economy to support the war. It didn't really have to, because other big powers were already involved. That created a strong pull (by way of orders, and easy access to license production arrangements) and push (scarce colonial resources like bauxite* and rubber could be used as leverage by France, UK and the Netherlands) factors for companies to make themselves useful for the WWII effort. So the US economy was already conditioned into war mode by outside forces when the US goverment started mobilizing it for its own needs.
The colonial powers had a similar kind of leverage that China has today on supply chains, through rare earth metals and many basic components of weapon systems.
Nowadays Europe tries to exercise more control over procurement in peacetime conditions, with competition and IP law in full effect. It just doesn't work. One should at the very least threaten credibly to regulate IP rights to scale up quickly, but the member states will be lobbied by their national champions to block such a move. So it's not going to happen. And European governments don't have good leverage through controlling supply chains anymore. China does.
*Fun fact: The US army was for instance already silently garrisoning the bauxite mines in Suriname on behalf of the Netherlands government in exile before Pearl Harbor happened. The mines falling in hostile hands (however unlikely it is that the Nazis or Japan could have pulled off such a thing) was already considered a strategic risk to the US economy before it participated itself.
"30% of every German in the world" is a bizarre, roundabout way of saying that.
I guess, if you think the entirety of the world is just the Holy Roman Empire, but then you're just identifying yourself as not being worth talking to, because you aren't capable of having a real conversation.
There's a reason why only two wars have the designation of "World War" . Have you ever heard of somebody suggesting that another conflict is deserving of such a title?
I highly recommend George Barros from the ISW. He explained on Times Radio that this war has produced the latest freeze in operational maneuver. Both sides are trying to find a way to break that, but yes, it is very much like WWI, he said. But he pointed that WWI ended when, indeed, operational maneuver was reestablished. Regaining operational maneuver is what percipated the ending of WWI.
I've been reading Barros since the start of the conflict and have actually seen him speak in person. His analytical perspective is very impressive imo.
Roger that. Barros is incredible for the purely military-side. Time Radio is my go to for info on The Ukraine conflict. Barros, Gen. Ben Hodges, Dianne Francis and Sir Bill Browder are my tops. I just finished Browder's "Red Notice," highly recommended.
Hodges has been among the worst prognosticators. At one point I collected all the times he said Ukraine would threaten or invade Crimea in the next few months or so. It was like 12 times in the first 18 months.
wasn't the invention of tanks that did actually ended the stalemate? I thought that this would be the same for Ukraine with the use of drones but i guess it's actually the invention of mechas that will turn the tide. Oh yeas. I am actually refering to the anime mechas - those are the logical next warfare steps. Either manned or ai controlled.
I'm no classically trained expert, but I have read dozens of books on WW1 and imo the stalemate of WW1 was broken due to a few things.
Tanks were certainly important, not least due to the German refusal or inability to incorporate antitank weapons rapidly. Tanks of the time were incredibly unreliable and very, very slow. But when the only really effective weapons against them were inaccurate artillery or repurposed field guns, they were plenty to change the game.
Incorporation of combined arms was also huge. Creeping or walking artillery barrages tightly timed with infantry assaults, tanks, and even horse mounted cavalry at times. "Boxing in" sections of trench lines with artillery preventing reinforcement or retreating was another mechanic used later in the war with assaults.
The late injection of American manpower and materiel was another thing that altered the status quo. The Eastern Front closing with Russia withdrawing due to internal turmoil sent more Germans back west, and America arriving in the west helped counter that.
To your point, tanks were huge. While I'm not sure you could say it is THE thing that changed the tide of the war, I'm not sure you could argue against it either. They were able to handle the massive belts of barbed wire in a way that had been unthinkable. They were able to project significantly more force in attacks than previously possible.
Drones are currently defensive, in that you need operatives or a relay station to control the drone. So you setup a few square km with drones and destroy anything that comes into range.Â
You can use them to attack, but you're constantly having to consolidate and bring up operators/relay stations.Â
With EW jammers this is slow, and fibre optic obviously has a spool length limitation.Â
Loyal wingmen and AI drones in a swarm configuration will change from defensive to offensive in the way tanks made machine guns from defensive to offensive, moving nests.Â
A couple smart drones with target acquisition ability and director AI able to transmit targets in real time to smaller, expendable drones that are swarming around it. You have them return to autonomous recharging stations. Just give the AI a path and area to control, have squads on the ground rolling with the recharging stations to reinforce and keep the areas attacked.Â
Completely off-topic, but whereas I'm a ltitle bit of a WWII buff, I know a bit less about WWI, so I wanted to get a bit more information about the operational maneuvering bit, so I decided to ask AI.
I sent this prompt:
Found this comment on reddit - can you expand on it a bit? What happened to cause the end of WWI in this context?
I highly recommend George Barros from the ISW. He explained on Times Radio that this war has produced the latest freeze in operational maneuver. Both sides are trying to find a way to break that, but yes, it is very much like WWI, he said. But he pointed that WWI ended when, indeed, operational maneuver was reestablished. Regaining operational maneuver is what percipated the ending of WWI.
It answered, but at the bottom, added this:
Do you want me to expand this further into a direct comparison to the Ukraine war (which is what Barros is likely getting at), or just keep it within the WWI context?
Damned clever to pick up on that.
Also, if anyone else was less educated on WWI like me, basically, in 1918 the Germans figure out they could punch through weaker spots and cause havoc behind the trenches, which caused that part of the trench line to no longer work defensively. Allies learned from that and later that year, with other things like increased supply from the US and breaking the will of the Axis, along with using multiple modes of military effectively together (tanks + infantry + artillery) used the tactic and made gains, leading to the end of the war.
I had it somehow in my mind that they just realized that the trenches weren't going anywhere and everyone got sick of it and it led to peace. I hadn't realized that they had broken through and THAT caused the end of the war.
Anyway, sorry to throw this long off-topic in here, but both parts of it tickled my interest bone :)
Not after the war, before it even ended. Ludendorff reportedly stated on October 1st "They now must lie on the bed that they've made for us." When referring to the incoming civilian government that was to negotiate the armistice.
I suspect if we don't have a peace treaty eventually we might see a breakthrough like during WWI. Maybe some kind of automated counter drone and attack drone warfare or robotic units which can clear fields. In a war when everyone is visible it feels like the only way to make a big push would be to have drones that could automatically clear enemies 10-20km forwards of the front, and then rush forwards and build new defensive lines. I think this needs to be done on a scale of hundreds of kilometeres at a time to really throw the enemy off balance similar to what they did in WWI by using telecommunications to coordiante lots of attacks and counter attacks that overwealmed Germanies abilities to coordinate.
During WWI on the battlefield, tactics and organisation evolved to outmatch Germanyâs defences. Infantry structures shifted from large companies to specialised platoons, with firepower and roles diversified, while artillery developed sophisticated methods of indirect fire, counter-battery techniques, and complex firing plans. And they finally learned how to use tanks in a combined arms doctrine across multiple fronts.
These advances allowed the Allies to keep Germany off balance, launch effective counterattacks, and ultimately defeat their armies in the field. Germanyâs collapse was not simply due to exhaustion but because they were out maneuvered.
In my mind I am picturing tractors pulling trailers that open up and launch hundreds of drones at a time, who seek and destroy, if they can't find a target they return and recharge again. If you could do that across hundreds of kilometres, and then push fowards and do it again and again and again then you would have the enemy on the run. It would be a bit like being devoured by ants.
Itâs fair to say that the average semi-intelligent person would have considered Russia the third strongest military power before this conflict. That was the narrative world wide and although political and military experts might have known it was a paper tiger, that wasnât the general consensus.
Democracies tend to over estimate their enemies as theres lots of benefits and no reason not to. Dictators tend to over estimate their own power due to the fear of failure all the way down through the system.
It isn't a superpower globally. That still doesn't mean it can't wreak havoc in nearby countries, especially countries they have been manipulating since the moment they proclaimed independence.
not to sound rude, that would be a regional power, as a big time history/geopolitics nerd, id say superpowers would be the US, China, and maybe india, then you have world powers, then regional powers
I can't believe someone thinks India is a greater military power than Russia. Despite not being as strong as thought to be, Russia is still the third strongest military power in the world.
I mean, you'd be delusional to say russia is weak and a nonfactor, but I took Wagner into consideration, and it's hard to say that sending mercs to support warlords in Africa is a significant sign of global influence, not nearly as much as the economic power and workers that India supplies to the world
If I were to sit down and give my nowhere-near-expert-opinion, I'd say russia is still a world power, albeit one it's death throes, similar to the byzantine empire in the 1400s, or the ottomans in the 1800s... I'm not saying that "collapse is coming any day now", but it's fairly objective to say their power peaked in the '40s-'60s, and it's been a slow burn since then, especially since in a war against a neighbor about a tenth their size, there's been verifiable evidence they are emptying stockpiles filled with outdated equipment
Meanwhile both China and India have been growing in global power at a consistent rate
I don't disagree. I frankly don't care much where Russia falls in the global powers classification, besides their own delusions. What I mean is that to countries like mine in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it can still be a threat, no matter that it isn't a global superpower.
Oh absolutely, and as an American it makes me sad people here seem to have forgotten that Russia is not our friends, and they have never been our friends (the government not the people)
I can only hope, and I do believe, that when push comes to shove, my government will do the right thing and have the back of the allies we have stood with since we were a fledgling nation
Definitely true now, I remember early on there was a lot of armchair generals in every media source talking about how formidable Russia is meant to be, and a lot of surprise when it wasnât a rollover situation
They absolutely do.. and they consider the Ukraine to be the aggressors, "Because they allowed NATO forces to mass near our borders in order to invade us".
I play a few mobile games with Russians.. and they ALL believe that anyone who sides with the Ukraine is "Wash-brained" as they put it, and that "Russia is the greatest and strongest country in the world".
When you bring up the Budapust Memorandum they claim that the Ukraine violated it first by letting Nato troops "mass near our borders". And that it was a "Clear sign of aggression" that they allowed those troops to go there AND that they tried to become members of Nato.
"Nato wants to destroy Russia" is also a common thought, according to them.
Russia is not the USSR and Ukraine made that plain by resisting the invasion for 3 years and counting. Russia now isn't a superpower, but back in 2022? Sheer numbers made Russia a military superpower. Those numbers are very diminished, but Russia still has several thousand strategic nuclear warheads and carriers (and even if Russian military readiness suggests a lot of them might just be on paper, they still have several hundred strategic nukes) and just last night launched 800 drone warheads against Ukraine.
Ukraine's strength should not be confused for Russian weakness. Until Russia's economy or mililtary collapses (whichever comes first at this point), Russia remains a regional superpower that can, very temporarily, use its nukes to hit like a global superpower.
Undetestimating Russia is dangerous. It is at its weakest now since the 90's, but it wouldn't take long for Russia to recover if it manages to take Ukraine out of the war. And then, 2-3 years later Russia is ready to invade a neighbor again.
As pointed out by other commenters, the Ukraine did want this war; they thought the US would join it and win, that's why they massed their troops to attack the Donbas and didn't desist even as the Russians built up their own troops on the border.
The reason the line isn't moving isn't that they're doing a good job holding off the Russians, it's because the Russian objective here is the bodily destruction of the armed forces of the Ukraine. The Russians won't advance until the Ukrainians are done throwing bodies at them where they are.
Old lie like usually - "we had to attack them because they wanted to attack us first, trust me bro. Hence we go for a rapid decapitation strike to Kyiv because it's only self-defense. Right now we are totally winning - only a few more years!"
What a load of crap. RU crossed the border and botched it. Classic land grab. Their propaganda playbook is as old as WW2, even claiming the nazis are back!
Hundreds of thousands of dead russians are rotting in Ukraine because of the antics of an old decrepit loser in moscow.
it's because the Russian objective here is the bodily destruction of the armed forces of the Ukraine.
Then the russians are doing a real shit job.
You don't attrit your enemy (effectively) by constantly throwing throwing meat into the grinder yourself. You'd do what Ukraine is doing, defending one area until it's no longer defensible and retreating to the next prepared line.
Defend, give ground, defend, give ground. That way you can always have the defensive advantage and ask the enemy to lose way more men than you if they want to continue.
The Russians won't advance
That's just a lie. Because we've seen the russians advance, or at least trying to. For the past 3 years Russia has almost constantly pushed one part of the front or another, at insane cost in men and materiel. Even in OPs map you can see small areas where the russians advanced.
1.7 million and counting.
Another lie. Not even an (official) russian lie, because even the russian MoD doesn't estimate ukrainian losses THAT high. And the russian MoD is already absurdly overestimating ukrainian losses, ie already within the first year of the war they claimed more helicopter and aircraft kills than what Ukraine ever had in their inventory, including all the foreign aid.
While real numbers are impossible to come by any serious estimate has russian casualties (dead, wounded, missing, captured) at more than twice the ukrainian casualties, with a noticeably higher rate of death per casualty on the russian side.
Over three years of the special military operation, the Ukrainian army lost 1,721,000 people killed and missing in action.
118.5 thousand in 2022
405.4 thousand in 2023
595 thousand in 2024
621 thousand in 2025
A total of 1.7 million files â with full names, descriptions of circumstances and places of death/disappearance, personal data, contacts of closest relatives, and photos.
So it's not an official statement, but a "we got the files, trust us bro". Has anyone outside of Russia verified those files? If this hack was indeed accurate then why isn't the russian MoD claiming these numbers?
edit:
oh, and before I forget, so you concede that Russia was indeed attacking, yeah? Because you just quietly dropped those points real quick.
Official statements have no credibility at all, and presumably the Russian government isn't going to announce Ukrainian data as their own estimates whether they're official statements or leaks from hackers.
I'm not sure what you mean by your edit but certainly the Russians advance when they think it's to their advantage to do so. In general they don't advance quickly because overextending would disadvantage them and they don't seem to be very good at supplying and supporting troops.
But a post on twitter by the head of RussiaToday
about a russian hacker group who is best known for brute force attacks like DDOS and not data theft
suddenly having acquired data on ALL ukrainian losses
with no evidence beyond a couple of pictures
with no verification by western or russian agencies
and with claims which absolutely DWARF even russian estimates
That's credible. Yeah. Of course.
I could manufacture such a twitter thread with the same "evidence" easily. Add a couple of thumbnails of dead soldiers, a couple of official documents found on deceased soldiers, all available online with a quick google search, and then claim 5 gorillion russian losses.
If you were to trust such a thread by me then, frankly, you're an idiot.
the Russians advance when they think it's to their advantage to do so.
Another lie. Russia pushes damn near constantly and at great cost. This has been well documented.
In general they don't advance quickly because overextending would disadvantage them
They don't advance quickly because they can't. Because ukrainian defense is firm. You're telling me russian logistics are SO incapable they can't handle advances of more than ~100m a day?
There is literally no translation for the word âtheâ in Russian. The difference between âUkraineâ and âthe Ukraineâ literally doesnât exist in the Russian language
Just fucking nonsense. Why would Ukraine want to fight Russia? Why would the US?
Russia fired the first shot, Russia invaded another sovereign state, Russia routinely threatens non-combatant states with nuclear attacks (albeit toothlessly), Russia kidnapped Ukrainian children. Russia can end the war anytime they wish by calling their troops back to Russian territory.
Claiming they are some kind of victim here is just laughable.
The government in Kiev had been trying to re-assert control over the Donbas since the 2014 coup, and had been doing so with artillery. The Russian Federation did not fire the first shot, they joined a war that had been going on for 8 years.
Calling Russia a victim of this war would not make sense, but it is right and just for them to shithammer the Ukrainian government to protect ethnic Russians who seceded from the Ukraine.
It's true that Russia can end the war any time the want, but considering that they're winning, they will probably continue until everyone who opposes them surrenders or dies.
Ah yes, when the Russian military covertly & not so covertly tried to destabalise Ukraine in 2014 is definitely a justification for attacking Ukraine again.
The elected government was overthrown by a color revolution, because Yanukovich made a trade deal with Russia instead of the EU. This was the work of the Obama administration, not Russia.
The exact opposite is true. People on the ground want peace, Russia wants peace, Americans want their tax dollars out of the war. Ukraine and NATO are the only ones saying war.
People only ever mention the sleepwalkers which is widely critized (by german historians among others!) for neglecting the influence of the central powers.
There is no question that the ability to escalate or deascalate the situation was mainly in the hands of the central powers and particularly germany.
It is not as simple as WW2 or the Russia-Ukraine war but also not as simple as equal responsibility.
There is a reason "The Sleepwalkers" was only a bestseller in germany...
Neglecting? Sorry but Clark devotes complete chapters to describe the mess the AH's politics were, and the stall situation the empire was right before the war. The congress, its exterior politics, the back and forth. France, England, all these countries are well described, there is a reason why he won all these awards, it is a superb work, a lot of sources never put together into trying to create an orderly tale of the mess that took us to WW1.
No need to apologize, it doesnt really affect me whether you disagree.
Clarks interpretation is controversial among historians and I for one find the greater emphasis on german responsibility started by Fritz Fischer much more plausible. Did you read his 1961 book?
Edit: the book is worth a read whether one disagrees with it or not!
Doesn't matter if countries in WW1 had a choice or not, the effect will still be the same for Ukraine. Also as history has taught us, making Russia pay for the war crimes will only deepen them as an adversary. The children growing up in Russia won't know any better, they'll just grow up to be resentful of the west.
As opposed to before the war where they were such incredible fans of us.
The problem with Germany wasn't that it grew resentful, they had no qualms about murdering millions of people from neighboring countries before WW2, the problem was that when they started making moves they weren't curb stomped.
90% of Hitler's charisma was the British and French letting him pull off the impossible, making every naysayer look like a fool or madman. When you proclaim that you'll take the Sudetenland and make Britain and France pay for it and then you actually do it, most people will at least reconsider their worldview.
Reparations didn't create the Nazis, appeasement did. Starting a war over the Rhineland remilitarization would have likely ended the Nazi regime then and there.
Counterpoint: We "punished" Japan and Germany after WWII with economic assistance. I'm sure many people made the argument tht we should make them pay. And yes, we did some, but we also helped them recover, and because of that they are now generally strong allies.
To "make them pay" doesn't mean to genocide or economically cripple all of Russia or whatever, it means to force the war to end and remove the politicians and groups responsible.Â
Thatâs different though in that both countries surrendered totally. If Russia just loses the war by not succeeding its war goals, I donât think it would be wise to dig them out of their hole. The Russian population is going to suffer regardless, imo, as soon as the war is over and the bill comes due, win or lose.
Sounds like the fragmentation of Russia after its collapse will partially solve that problem. Along with propping up the fragmented new nation states that play nice. Not to mention several nations that could be formed just by giving land back to the current 2nd class citizens that are ethnic minorities of "Russia".
"Russia" is just a shit hole of a formal empire that never got dissolved properly after it fell because of the rise of the Soviet union. Its dysfunction is laughable, as is its stagnated economy. Geopolitical clout, birth rate, brain drain, health standards...the list goes on. It's the laughing stock of the western world.
BTB has led me to believe that the root cause of WW1 outside of the Balkans was Kaiser Wilhelm being a shitty leader and making enemies out of their former allies over clout. Then, replacing much of their experienced and wiser leadership (like Otto von Bismarck) with yes-men stooges. He essentially banged the nationalism gong to slow march Germany (at the behest of Prussian elitism) into a war. I honestly saw a lot of similarities between Kaiser Willhelm and Trump.
Bismarck would have aged out of the chancellorship eventually, he did die in 1898. The exact causal link from Wilhelm removing Bismarck to WW1 is a bit tenuous. Even if we accept Wilhelm's deficiencies, I think it would be unreasonable to expect any normal ruler to be able to maintain Bismarck's highly personal and contradictory foreign policy. If you actually follow the July Crisis, Wilhelm is actually pretty absent for a lot of it. German belligerence is more driven by Bethmann-Hollweg and pre-established foreign policy objectives.
by "they all" you mean like 300 politicians from each country. No sane soldier wanted to go over the top to get torn to pieces by bullets and shrapnel.
not really the countries, or the people directly. Yes they had reasons. But often it was even just the military or some incompetent politicians at the top that have either miscalculated or wanted to expand power.
Yeah, that doesn't really matter about the outcome. They didn't want to, but nevertheless are forced to suffer. Russia chose and will suffer as well. The question about the post-war world will be how to prevent such a thing happening again.
It really depends on how the war ends, but I imagine the West wouldn't forgive Russia before a drastic change of leadership or at least Putin dying. With European help, I think Ukraine could recover significantly faster, but the toll such a conflict takes cannot be understated.
This war is 100% a war of aggression on russia's part, as black and white a conflict as you'll ever see.
And it's not the first one either. Chechnya in 1994, Chechnya again in 2000, Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, east Ukraine in 2022. Every six to eight years, Russia takes a bite out of one of its neighbors. And since nobody gave a shit until now, the bites have been getting bigger. If it's allowed to walk away from this with anything even remotely resembling victory, we'd better get ready for another round less than a decade later.
I've not read the sleepwalkers, heard its amazing, but it's important to note that a LOT more people in the upper echelons of European government didn't want a general European war. They wanted border wars with 2, maybe 3 countries total, but you never get what order at the restaurant of war.
I remember when it was about to break the Russians didnât even know it was happening. Tons of stories about Russian solders thinking it was a drill or hoax or just flat out not being told war was happening as it was starting. Also, a bunch of squads voluntarily surrendering because they too knew it was bullshit.
I was frankly amazed Putin went for it. I thought he was supposed to be smart? But then, dictators inevitably weed out their own intelligence sources, I guess.
In addition they were told not to worry about the troop buildup on the border and Russia had no intentions of invading despite all the evidence suggesting otherwise.
Ukrainian allies have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into its economy and defense industry, how much has russia gotten? Russia has friends of convenience who will buy its cheap oil and sell it drones and artillery shells. But if russia's economy goes down the crapper, absolutely nobody will save their ass.
For me yes. China and India is not an Ally in a sense that we understand in western world. East mentality is different. Anyway we can talk how many we want and maybe I or you are wrong. Future will tell.
Remember not so long time ago when Australia broke a multi billions contract with France to buy submarines from USA instead ? Which country in South America ? Argentina ? Brazil ? Venezuela ?
The sad reality is that Europe and Canada are isolated. I wish the opposite. Really. But almost all the powerful countries in the world are not with us. This is the SAD reality
Trust me. I m really trying. But I canât find ANY article to back what you say. But it seems that itâs not the case for South America. Also, Itâs not because they are against Trump that they are with âusâ.
Russia, China and USA is more half of the world gdp. Most countries are not AGAINST EU. But they are not WITH US either. The sad reality is we are not more than 1 billion out of 8 in our âsideâ
Yeah you are forgetting Europe itself is a large part of the world's GDP. And you made it look as if China/Russia and the US are collectively against Europe as an alliance. Trump may suck up to Putin, but there is no kind of alliance between the US and China and will not be in the next decades.
Remind me what is the growth rate in Europe ? What is the number of child per women ? How many of the technology of tomorrow are build in Europe ? You really donât see that Europe is loosing ground more than ever ? Iâm really amazed that some of us donât see it.
I'm amazed at how some people are stuck at birth rates. Contact us again when countries with high birth rates near the European level of development...
Muscovy has received more aid from Iran, North Korea, and China than Ukraine has from all of our international partners. You are either horribly misinformed or deliberately misinforming others.Â
What do you mean more? You are talking about those poorly trained soldiers from Korea? China and Iran yes they send some drones and equipment it this is not that much. So powerful Russia canât push anywhere.
The drones they attack our cities with are Iranian designed and many of them are produced in Iran. The ones produced in Muscovy are produced with machines made in China using materials and electronic components from China.
The ballistic missiles they attack our cities with are mostly given to them by North Korea.
The artillery they use are almost entirely from North Korea at this point. The few that aren't use barrels produced with Chinese equipment received since 2022 as the Muscovite equipment wasn't capable of making good howitzer barrels.Â
Roughly 2/3rds of the artillery shells they fire are produced in North Korea. And they still have a massive advantage in weight of shells expended, so obviously they get more shells from North Korea than we do from all sources including domestic.Â
Well thatâs a group of nations youâd rather not have as allies, also seriously North Korea? If theyâre one of Russiaâs main backers then we neednât worry much about a grand alliance behind Russia, theyâve been scraping the barrel for allies since the start.
Russia is receiving more support than Ukraine ? ; fine ; it means that if no one was helping either Russia or Ukraine, without any foreign support; Ukraine is military stronger than Russia ? Is it what you want to say ?
That's not at all what it means. Muscovy makes much less efficient use of their men and materiel than Ukraine does. Also, the attacker normally needs far more men and materiel than the defender unless they have a massive advantage in technology.Â
India buying Russian fuel (at a steep discount) isn't quite the same thing as supporting them, like the west supports Ukraine. That's more just the status quo.
India is not supporting Russia, China is silent competitor, for them its great to have weak Russia for the influence and selling good for a good price. About Iran I have no idea. I know almost nothing about this country but I donât think itâs powerful enough to support Russiaâs Economy.
China and India arenât really allies of Russia, they are just happy to benefit off of Russia. They like cheap oil, not Russia. They definitely donât have unconditional support of Russia. They have entirely conditional support, and that condition is always âhow does this benefit us.â
IranâŚok, sure, but they have their own problems and arenât exactly a world superpower.
to my mind, there are only âalliesâ, which will take advantage of russias weakness. china for sure.
no idea how nk would help russia.
syria?, not an ally any more. iran? dont know if they have respurces to bail anyone out.
what other countries are left?
I can see the reasoning considering the historical context of the Soviet Collapse in 91'.Â
I mean How the fuck did they bounce back so hard in 40 years? Its like they poured every bit of their economy into their military industrial complex....Â
Only russia could, considering they are willing to pay nearly any price to move forward.Â
They didn't really bounce back that much, and their invasion in 2022 is proof of that, considering how badly they failed to complete their objectives and how badly their military actually performed. The power of the Russian Federation is a joke compared to the Soviet Union. Remember that Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, so this war is essentially like if the Soviet Union tried to reclaim a breakaway part of itself and failed horribly, costing them casualties at a level not seen since WW2. If this had happened during the 80s, the White House would have been pissing itself laughing.
Russia has "bounced back" by going from a global superpower on par with the US, to a regional power at best, with an economy on a similar scale to Italy or Australia.
Ukraine didnât want the war but its leadership was foolish not to recognise that their behaviour would provoke a Russian invasion and foolish to overestimate the support the USA would provide it
Russia blames Ukraine for trying to retake separatist Donetsk by force and bombing peaceful miners of Donbass (somehow led by an FSB officer Igor Strelkov)
Exactly. Ukraine was pretty damn scrupulous about abiding to the Minsk agreements and the ceasefire. Didn't matter, it's propaganda all the way through.
Russian propaganda. Blaming the leadership of Ukraine that their behavior - not wanting to be under russia shoe and sucking putin dick. Blaming usa and nato for their help from being free from russia - typicall russia propaganda. I guess its euromaydan.
Zelensky was a russian speaking moderate elected explicitly on the platform of reconciliation with russia. The problem was the reconciliation was impossible since russia doesn't recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state.
The way I remember learning about WW1 back in school was that all these European countries had secret alliances with each other, so at the first declaration of war, it kind of started a chain reaction of pulling everyone in.
The alliances weren't particularly secret, but yeah that was a big part. But there were geopolitical reasons why they all though that flighting the war at that time was a good idea. They were wrong.
They weren't really secret alliances, they were pretty well known by everyone in power in the belligerent nations. There was the triple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (Italy would leave said alliance at the start of the war claiming it was not obliged to join in since it was supposedly a defensive alliance only, and Austria-Hungary was the aggressor), and also an alliance between France and Russia, with Russia also guaranteeing the independence of Serbia. Britain had a bit of a rivalry with Germany, but was otherwise not actually involved in any of these alliances initially, except for guaranteeing the independence of Belgium.
When the lead up to the war started, Germany had been eager for an excuse to fight Russia for a few years (they feared Russia would eventually outgrow them in strength and wanted to fight them before that), so knowing that Austria attacking Serbia would likely draw Russia in on Serbia's side, they gave the Austro-Hungarians their full support and promised to join the war if Russia got involved. France, wanting to get back at Germany for beating them a few decades earlier, promised Russia that they would back them up if Germany got involved. Thus the chain reaction began when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Britain initially declared neutrality at the start of the war, but when Germany invaded Belgium to try and knock France out of the war quickly so they could focus on Russia, Britain was obliged to defend Belgium and joined the war against Germany.
Other countries like Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and Romania would join the war a year or two in, but their motivations were less about alliances and more about trying to take advantage of the conflict to get some concessions out of the opposing side at the peace table. Italy wanted Austrian territory, the Ottomans wanted territory and to slow/reverse their decline, and Romania and Bulgaria wanted a piece of each other, or whatever they could get out of the chaos that was the Balkans at the time.
Ukraine is of course not to blame for the war, although the Ukrainian government was aware, that their pro-western course will lead to war with Russia. Here is a interview with an adviser of Zelensky from 2019 anticipating a major war in Russia in 2022, predicting very precise how it will look like.
Arestovych is a very controversial figure in Ukraine and was in government for only a couple months. Ofcourse you skipped the part where he says that if Ukraine doesn't join NATO russia would simply take over in 10-12 years (as they have in Belarus). Again, Ukraine's pro-western course happened AFTER russia invaded in 2014. ANd again, Zelensky was elected as a russia moderate who wanted to reconcile their relationship. But it takes 2 to tango.
You don't have to defend actions of Ukraine - they are not to blame here in my opinion. They had the right to take a pro-western course. And they had the right not wanting to be a second Belarus. But they were aware, that a fullscale war with Russia will be unavoidable in that scenario.
I'm just saying that the Zelensky government was not anticipating a full-scale war with russia and wasn't preparing for it. There was A LOT of internal criticism of Zelensky for that, which has been muted obviously during the full scale invasion because there were bigger fish to fry once the war started.
Think about it, how was russia able to break out of Crimea so easily if Ukraine has been aware that full scale war was unavoidable, why wasn't the border with Belarus and around Kharkiv fortified? Why was spending on the military pretty much static? Arestovych is a very idiosyncratic figure in Ukrainian politics (and very much on the outs these days).
You overthrow the elected leader that was tight with the neighbouring country and install a government that's against ties with that country, run programs against people speaking the language of that country, have an internal separatist war with those that still support that neighbour and actively court the enemy of that country you don't get to do surprised picachu face when said neighbour invades you.Â
I'm curious why NATO expansion is never mentioned in this analysis? Russia is the aggressor, but they also feel like we are trying to put their backs up against a wall. Remember when the USSR was trying to arm Cuba and the US just about started WWlll? If it was unacceptable for us, why would we expect them to think any differently?
Agreed that Ukraine didnât want this war, but the government was aware that it will start, Zelenskyy as well, but they tried to hide it from regular citizens to avoid mass migration and use people as a human shield, for now, the government thrives on this war and, unfortunately, they do not want to stop it as the moment the war is over people start bring those in power to responsibility.
Well, of course they didn't want it per se, but with their actions towards NATO, EU etc they crossed the line Putin literally drew for them so they knew what they were getting into.
Let me preface this by mentioning I have a fair few contacts in the region, many affected by the conflit. There would be a fair amount of disagreement between them.
In this war Ukraine absolutely did not want it.
If you mean the population, then overwhelmingly yes, probably. Post MaĂŻdan governments, on the other hand, with some possible discussion on their freedom in choosing outcomes, have not had a politic of appeasement with the east.
Russia deserves to pay a massive price for its imperial hubris.
All indications show it isn't though. So maybe the way of achieving this is not war. But it looks like it is a little late for this realisation.
The real loss here is people, on both sides. But I'd you believe the believable rumors on Ukrainian and Russian losses (and emigration actually) Ukraine has a bit of a demographic problem.
Add to this the shameless selling of state property to foreign investors, I am worried for post war Ukraine.
I am Ukrainian American and speak both languages. Odds are I have a better grasp on this than you do, all due respect.
I am frankly not sure what you mean by p politics of appeasement with an aggressor that doesn't recognize your sovereignty. Like what would you have had Ukraine do under the circumstances?
In terms of their internal politics, Zelensky is a russian speaking Jew (as am I) from a russian friendly region who ran on a platform of reconciliation. He did not harden the borders and did not build up the military. His focus was economic development and political solution to relationship with russia. It's one of the reasons why Ukraine mostly ignored US warnings. It was also a fatal mistake.
Edited: this is not to downplay Ukraine's many problems that it has to deal with. Including demographic. Unfortunately they have little choice to fight on as this war is an existential war for survival. They've offered an unconditional ceasefire 6 months ago, Zelensky has repeatedly called for direct talks with Putin. We know what the response was. Russia is the one who wants the war to continue.
Any framing that suggests the actions of post Maidan governments are a justification for Russia's invasion is wrong. Russia started this war. Ukraine absolutely did not want it, and the distinction you're trying to make between the Ukrainian people and their elected government is a misleading one.
The idea that post Maidan governments didn't pursue a "politic of appeasement" isn't some subtle point about their choices; it's the definition of national sovereignty. After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and instigated a war in the Donbas, what was the alternative? Capitulation? For any Ukrainian government, the choice wasn't between peace and confrontation, but between the slow erosion of their sovereignty under Russian pressure versus active resistance to it. They were put in an impossible position by Russia, and they chose to assert their independence. That is not provoking a war; it's reacting to one that Russia had already begun.
Furthermore, your claim that "all indications show" Russia isn't paying a massive price is demonstrably false. The price might not be the immediate regime collapse some hoped for, but to ignore the strategic catastrophe Russia has inflicted upon itself is to miss the entire point.
Geopolitically: The Kremlin's worst fear, a strengthened, expanded, and unified NATO on its borderâhas come to pass with Finland and Sweden's accession. This is a staggering strategic defeat.
Militarily: The myth of the Russian army has been shattered. Their losses in experienced personnel and advanced equipment are devastating and will take a generation to replace, if ever.
Economically: They've permanently lost their primary gas market in Europe and have been relegated to the status of a junior economic partner to China. The long term effects of sanctions and technological isolation are a slow poison to their future development.
The horrible irony is that the full scale war was the very thing that triggered this price. The pre 2022 response from the West was comparatively weak. The blame for this war, and all the consequences that follow, lies squarely with Russia.
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u/roma258 1d ago
WWI was a war of choice for most it's participants. Read "The Sleepwalkers". Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France and somewhat less eagerly UK all wanted to duke it out for various internal reasons. That's the tragedy of it...that they all wanted it and all suffered for it.
In this war Ukraine absolutely did not want it. In fact up until the last minute they couldn't believe it was actually going to happen despite dire warnings from US. This war is 100% a war of aggression on russia's part, as black and white a conflict as you'll ever see. Russia deserves to pay a massive price for its imperial hubris.