FYI, My academic credentials begin with a Combined Honours degree in Modern History, Politics and Economics, and carry on from there.
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i assume you got your credentials before sp called intelligent people (even US supreme court judfges) had difficulty in defining a woman....
And Sweden has the green light to become the 32nd member of NATO.
Seems like Putin's plan is back firing here.
The announcement that Sweden will now become the 32nd member of NATO pretty much closes the lid on any prospects Putin had of a) weakening NATO after launching his "special operation", and b) posing any great threat to Europe as a whole in the future.
Sweden now has much greater security being teamed with the largest military alliance in the world, while making a significant contribution to NATO forces as well. Sweden's strength comes from their mastery of technology. Particularly, in three key elements of warfare: speed, surveillance, and stealth. Besides having a formidable ground force the Swedish Air Force today stands as one of the finest and most modern in the world.
I'm sure Lukashenko is delighted at the news...LOL.
"Sweden now has much greater security being teamed with the largest military alliance in the world, while making a significant contribution to NATO forces as well. Sweden's strength comes from their mastery of technology. Particularly, in three key elements of warfare: speed, surveillance, and stealth. Besides having a formidable ground force the Swedish Air Force today stands as one of the finest and most modern in the world."
Also, if they drop boxed sets of Abba on the Russian forces they'll be unable to resist the urge to dance rendering them incapable of mass slaughter of civilians.
As well as Ukraine, two other NATO partner countries have declared their wish for NATO membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia (which has a border with Russia).
Over a year already and they still haven't found those dam Nazi's yet...go figure.
I imagine they could have all fled to places like Kazakhstan and /or Mongolia disguised as Russian migrant workers, or maybe even crossed into Belarus to join forces with their fellow inmates in the Wagner Group. Who knows!
In any event it's hard to imagine how Putin will ever rest easy knowing that all those Nazi's are still running around loose.
Dear, Erdogan will keep Sweden on short rope, and until Turkey will be accepted in EU as a member, no Sweden will be in NATO. So now again one more "roadmap" how Sweden will fight with Kurdish opposition (they will not) who is living is Sweden.. Don't expect Sweden will be in NATO soon.
Turkey is waiting over 30 year for EU membership. So will Sweden.
Turkey already took the EU requirement off the table, almost the same day he tried to add it on. Sweden has already met all of Turkey's other conditions, and Turkey has said it will grant Sweden's membership.
As for "short leash", that doesn't even make sense as it's not a thing. Being a NATO member is a pretty binary thing -- either you are or you aren't, there's no middle ground. If a "short leash" was possible within NATO guaranteed Turkey would be on it due to its abysmal human rights record, but they're not, because it doesn't exist.
I think you may want to prepare yourself for the fact that Russia is eventually going to lose this war, and when they do, Russia may collapse again circa 1991. Went from Soviet Union down to modern day Russia, and you might be getting smaller. Not sure where in Russia you are, but hey, you might be in a brand new country once this is all over.
Given that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated (July 10) that "Sweden, in return for Erdogan’s support, addressed Turkey’s security concerns and “significantly expanded” its counter-terrorism efforts against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and would help Turkey enter the E.U." (https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbu...h=42b7a483511f), both countries will wait significantly less than 30 years, maybe even less than 30 months, to see their wishes granted.
I know Turkey really wants to get into the EU due to its current economic troubles, but I think they'll be waiting awhile. Both, human rights record and democratic institutions aren't exactly up to snuff.
Right now the war has shifted in favour of Russia.
The Spring Offensive Zelensky promised never materialised.
The delivery of cluster bombs from the US is proof the Russian fortifications are beyond anything the Ukrainians have.
Potentially worse are the clear signs the West is tiring of bankrolling this with seemingly no end in sight.
Ben Wallace's pointed comments probably speak for many countries feelings.
Wouldn't say that. I'm quite confident the West will keep the pressure up, as the West has learned from WWII that threats like Russia can't be left unattended. For example, Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1st, 1939. London was first bombed a simple year later on Sept 7th, 1940.
The West knows Putin has ambitions outside of Ukraine, so I would expect the West to continue bank rollling the Ukraine war so the war doesn't end up in central Europe and possibley beyond.
Russia is also hurting right now in almost all areas -- seem to be running out of soldiers, weapons running low and for example there's reports of T34 tanks being seen roaming around Ukraine, sanctions are starting to bite hard, ruble has been falling lately, gas revenue from EUeope has now all but dried up, et al.
====I think you may want to prepare yourself for the fact that Russia is eventually going to lose this war, and when they do, Russia may collapse again circa 1991. Went from Soviet Union down to modern day Russia, and you might be getting smaller. Not sure where in Russia you are, but hey, you might be in a brand new country once this is all over.=====
Matt, you already predicted "default" of Russia at least 5 times in this thread.
Your dreams are zero coherent with reality. And reality is: in 2023 even under sanctions inflation in Russia is lower than in most Western countries, GDP is rising more than in most Western countries.
Position of Erdogan is clearly stated exactly on July 10:
https://www.trtworld.com/turkiye/erd...o-bid-13978303Quote:
"First, let's pave the way for Türkiye in the EU, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland."
The Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote "If . . . we consider the pure concept of war . . . . its aim would have always and solely to be to overcome the enemy and disarm him." This encompasses "three broad objectives, which between them cover everything: destroying the enemy's armed forces; occupying his country; and breaking his will to continue the struggle" (Michael Howard/Peter Paret translation, Princeton University Press, 1976/84, page 90).
In the 500 or so days since the beginning of the "special military operation" that was supposed to be over in less than a week, the Russian forces have failed not only to overcome and disarm the Ukrainian forces, they show no signs of destroying the Ukrainian forces, occupying the country, or in breaking the will of the Ukrainian people.
And since the war began you've been saying it will be over with Russia as the victor within 2 or 3 weeks. What's your point?
Since the West publicly bragged about how much military gear it will be sending Ukraine and when, Russia had months to dig in defensively. Russia doesn't even seem to be bothering with offensive operations right now. The chances of Russia being able to take and hold Kiev are about 0. Ok, not about 0, exactly 0.
====In the 500 or so days since the beginning of the "special military operation" that was supposed to be over in less than a week, the Russian forces have failed not only to overcome and disarm the Ukrainian forces, they show no signs of destroying the Ukrainian forces, occupying the country, or in breaking the will of the Ukrainian people.===
Do you want to discuss 20 years of US war in Afghanistan?
===Since the West publicly bragged about how much military gear it will be sending Ukraine and when, Russia had months to dig in defensively. Russia doesn't even seem to be bothering with offensive operations right now. The chances of Russia being able to take and hold Kiev are about 0. Ok, not about 0, exactly 0.====
Should it? Russia stays on position, destroys onу by one Ukrainian battalions and Western military machines. 50% of Ukrainian power supply network is laying in ruins, 30% of supplied tanks and artillery is trash now. Western sponsors of war are discouraged, support of Ukraine is going down (in last package about 70% of support are loans and credits instead of donations), meanwhile Russia got new lands and is still stable.
If West wants to have this war in style "till the last Ukrainian" then Ok, nobody cares here.
If you sit by the river for long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.
Sure, although I'm not American and the same rationale for Russia's invasion of Ukraine does not apply.
But only if you want to discuss the Soviet Union's 10-year involvement in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, or its 1939 invasion of Finland first, or its failures in the Polish–Soviet War (1919–21) and in the independence wars for Estonia (1918–20), Latvia (1918–20) and Lithuania (1918–19), remembering that the Russian Federation is legally regarded as the USSR's successor, which is why it automatically succeeded to its UN seat, including its permanent membership on the Security Council after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which originally co-founded the UN in 1945.
What is interesting is that Soviet strategists/Russian Marxists are reported to have studied Clausewitz with care, and have appropriated his ideas, and even his actual words, very freely (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...oviet-strategy). Moreover, Clausewitz also examined the Russo-Turkish War of 1736–1739, a precursor to the latter annexation of Crimea, in which he described Imperial Russian unpreparedness in terms similar to the current conditions (https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...ay_885101.html).
In reality, journalists at the independent Russian media outlets Meduza and Mediazone, who collaborated with a university statistician to analyze publicly accessible records, claim the number of Russian fatalities so far is three times the number of Soviet troops killed in more than 10 years of war in Afghanistan. The journalists stated that, “By our calculations, as of late May 2023, roughly 47,000 Russian men under the age of 50 have died in the war. To be absolutely precise, we can assert with a 95% probability that the true number of casualties falls between 40,000 and 55,000. This estimate does not take into account the losses of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)” (https://en.zona.media/article/2023/07/10/stats).
The Economist (https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...ied-in-ukraine) carried an interesting graph illustrating the expansion in the gender gap in inheritance filings in weekly probate cases for 20- to 24-year-old for men and women. The loss of these young men will have for-reaching implications for Russia’s future, which means that somebody will care. Statistica reported that the gap between the number of women and men in Russia was measured at 10.25 million as of January 1, 2022, with the female population of the country historically outnumbering the male population (https://www.statista.com/statistics/...der-age-group/). The gap is widening, and is presently at about current male population at 46.3%, and current female population at 53.7% of total population.
Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 total casualties, including 15,500 to 17,500 killed in action and 109,000 to 113,500 wounded in action, according to the document titled, “Russia/Ukraine – Assessed Combat Sustainability and Attrition” (April 12, 2023), acknowledging that the figures are approximately 10 times larger than any public casualty figure published by either Moscow or Kyiv (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/...d-us-documents).
The number of Russian deaths, therefore is somewhere between 2 and 3 to 1 in favour of the Ukrainians.
With regard to equipment losses, so far in its Ukrainian invasion, the Russian Federation has also lost more than 11146 pieces of military equipment (of which: destroyed: 7459, damaged: 425, abandoned: 422, captured: 2840) (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...equipment.html) according to the Dutch open-source intelligence website Oryx, which has been collecting visual evidence of military equipment losses in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began.
In contrast, Oryx estimates Ukrainian equipment losses at 3892, of which: destroyed: 2549, damaged: 274, abandoned: 135, captured: 924 (https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/0...ukrainian.html). Some of these losses have been made up by repairing captured Russian equipment, though.
Other reports suggest that only 40% of Ukraine's power supply has been destroyed.
As the Dnieper River passes through both Ukraine and Russia, which country supplies the most corpses is still being determined.
Reality is complicated and troublesome.
While Erdogan's green light was crucial, Turkey's parliament still needs to ratify the accession. When the agreement between Sweden, Turkey and NATO was announced on Monday, July 10, no precise date was given for the vote. "As soon as possible", NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters.
The Turkish parliament's programme ends on July 18 according to the official timetable, and it is not expected to resume its session until September.
Hungary, the other remaining member of NATO's 31 allies still to ratify Sweden's entry, has made it clear that it will not delay the issue any further. Ratification is "only a technical question," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday.
Based on these acknowledgements it appears as if Sweden's entry into NATO will be fully ratified in the September time frame.
Turkey's desire to enter the EU did not appear to be one of the bargaining chips...but the sale of U.S. made F-16 fighter jets to Turkey was. Turkey may have to wait until hell freezes over to gain entry into the EU (and I personally hope they do) - but Sweden will be entering NATO in a matter of weeks which is cause for celebration.
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (commonly called AKP in English) and its allies control 323 seats in Turkey's Grand National Assembly, and the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) is the AKP's Deputy Chairman. Erdogan controls enough votes to get Sweden's accession to NATO passed, through probably not until October.
===Based on these acknowledgements it appears as if Sweden's entry into NATO will be fully ratified in the September time frame.===
===Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (commonly called AKP in English) and its allies control 323 seats in Turkey's Grand National Assembly, and the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) is the AKP's Deputy Chairman. Erdogan controls enough votes to get Sweden's accession to NATO passed, through probably not until October.===
So, September or October?
Propaganda promises a lot :)
Erdogan may do, but will he?
Once again:
Few months ago:Quote:
"First, let's pave the way for Türkiye in the EU, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland."
Attachment 13181
July 2023:
Attachment 13182
Erdogan has been quoted as making the statement you posted, but it has to be put in context. Erdogan has also been reported (speaking in Turkish on three separate occasions) as not directly linking Sweden’s NATO accession to Turkey’s EU accession. He is reported as making the following three points in all his three declarations before and after meeting in Vilnius:
(1) He would, unconditionally, submit the Sweden’s NATO accession to a vote in the Turkish parliament, adding the caveat that he would only accept it as a done deal once the Turkish parliament approves it.
(2) He said that Turkey is waiting for EU candidacy for a long time, despite being a member of the European Council. He made this comment for the reason that he believes Turkey is not fairly treated, but he agrees for Sweden to join NATO for the peace in the world.
(3) He said that the US administration linked the renewal of Turkish F-16’s to Sweden’s NATO accession, and he hoped that this will fare positively.
As usual, however, we will have to wait to see what eventuates, bearing in mind that NATO is a military alliance, while the EU is an economic union. They have differing requirements for membership, as Erdogan is probably aware.
Besides, looks like turkey is moving closer towards NATO anf ruther away from Russia these days anyway. Three things:
1.) Recently, allowed Zelensky to return to Ukraine from Turkey with five Azoc commanders. It previously was a prisoner swap of the Azov soldiers captured in Mariupol, and deal was those five commanders would remain in Turkey for the duation of the war, hence Turkey broke the agreement.
2.) Russia wants to pull out of the grain deal allowing safe passage of grain exports from Ukrain's ports. Turkey stepped in and said it will unilaterally enforce the deal if necessary, going against Russia.
3.) Natrually, Turkey has said it will approve Sweden's membership into NATO.
That sounds ominous, except that TASS reported 5 days ago (headlined "Erdogan repeats that he expects Putin to visit Turkey in August. According to Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, there have been no new phone calls between the Russian and Turkish presidents") that (a) Putin was only "expected" to visit Turkey in August, (b) the visit is supposed to discuss the grain corridor and the Ukrainian conflict, and (c) the the lack of progress on the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum concerning the implementation of Russia’s demands concerning exports of its food and fertilizers, re-connecting Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT and some other matters (https://tass.com/politics/1644761).
I wish you guys would stop discussing this as if ita a soccer competition, if informatiion gleamed from public records is to believed over 50,000 young Russian men have died, dozens of cities in the Ukraine have been pulverised killing thousands of innocents and displacing millions....all because putin wants to turn back the clock by force when he simply could have bought what he wanted with the gazzilions in oil revenue...
Totally agree in concept, with two corrections;
a) Putin's political stick has done more than just shrink over the past 16 months - it has been "miniaturized" to where he now has as much political clout as Jamaica.
b) I believe people still take him seriously. Seriously insane.
I know that there's nothing funny about this situation at all - but I can't help but imagine how Putin would react it Belarus stopped answering his phone calls and applied for NATO membership...beyond hilarious!!!...
Unfortunately, it was never as simple as that.
Trump offered to buy Greenland but was told in no uncertain terms that "Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously” (Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, during a visit to Greenland, August 2019).
The last major country to buy territories was the USA, which bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, the Philippines from Spain in 1898, and the Danish Virgin Islands in 1917. In each case, however, the native inhabitants were not consulted about the sale by the occupying power.
It is clear that Ukraine would not have sold its occupied territories for any amount of money.
Moreover, psychologists who have analyzed Putin's behavior and career believe he needs the forceful annexation of the Ukrainian territories to cement his place in Russian history (see, e.g., https://www.e-ir.info/2022/11/28/opi...-with-ukraine/). He will undoubtedly secure his place in history - but not in the way he intended.
Since WW2 ended.
Korea. USA
Hungary. Soviet
Cuba. USA
Vietnam. USA
Czechoslovakia. Soviet
Afghanistan. Soviet
Grenada. USA
Nicaragua. USA
Afghanistan. USA
Iraq. USA
Syria. Russia
Ukraine. Russia
The unspoken thing. Both sides use these wars to keep the military battle ready. Putin could have invaded Ukraine at any time, after all the supposed Nazis haven't turned suddenly up in the last 14 months. He waited until the US and its allies were knackered from 20 years of pointless warring in Afghanistan.
===Syria. Russia===
Bullshit: Russia is invited, not invaded to Syria. Russia is officially in Syria by invitation of ruling govt. USA is also in Syria, but it is against will of Syrian govt.
Also you forgot:
Iraq UK + EU
Falklands UK
In total there were (or still going) 68 military conflicts in 21st century on Earth.
I didn't suggest all were invasions. Merely that all are armed conflicts and are used as live trainng exercises.
Urban. Check
Dessert. Check
Jungle.USA,check. Russia, try Bali or Bhutan or somewhere like that.
Sea. Check.
Air. Check.