Why dosen’t Poland just give the jets directly to Ukraine by letting the Ukrainian pilots fly the planes back into their country?
The NATO countries have 25,000 combat ready aircraft and Russia has 5,000 plus the S400 antiaircraft batteries are in Belarus. I doubt that the Belarusians, while being a Russian satelite state, would risk an airstrike by NATO.
So, JUST GIVE THE DAMM JETS TO UKRAINE!
OTFoolish
I’ll go one further than that. I think it’s time we call Putin’s bluff on nukes.
It is clear to me that Putin is not going to stop here. WWIII has already started, we’re just really early in it and nobody has officially recognized it by declaring war. Eventually he hits a NATO country. Article 5 will be declared. And Putin will again threaten nukes for any NATO country that helps the one he is currently invading.
In other words, the nuke threat does not go away after Ukraine. Deal with it now. Maybe his nuclear fleet is as “capable” as his army is… Maybe his generals won’t launch them anyway.
It’s a depressing thought of mine, I know.
Maybe his generals won’t launch them anyway.
It’s a depressing thought of mine, I know.
Maybe a couple of them will have a Coming to God meeting with Dear Leader Vlad. He’s on a ‘personal quest’ of reuniting his dear USSR and pictures himself as becoming a modern day Alexander the Great. The generals need to get him short stopped.
(The bare chested pix of him on horseback would tend to confirm that idea.)
It would be nice if we can avoid the Coming to Armageddon scenario, but one way or the other, he can’t be allowed to continue. Not today, NOR tomorrow.
Why dosen’t Poland just give the jets directly to Ukraine by letting the Ukrainian pilots fly the planes back into their country?
Poland wants to be seen by Vlad, at least per his words (LOL), as NOT being involves in the war. So, if the planes were flown from Poland, that means Poland is part of the war (per Vlad). However, if the planes are flown Germany (by Ukrainian pilots), that is too far away for Russia to do much unless they try to attack Germany with missiles. In which case, Russia involves NATO by attacking Germany. Vlad knows he will lose against NATO, so his choices become extremely limited. One of those choices is he gets eliminated by the military command because he made stupid choices and they all failed. The risk of even non-nuclear war in Russia destroys the govt credibility with the public–because they had been told all along that the war was just with Ukraine. So, no likely attacks on Mother Russia. When that changes dramatically, the likelihood of revolt/revolution–and a major change in leadershiP–becomes far more likely.
In other words, the nuke threat does not go away after Ukraine. Deal with it now. Maybe his nuclear fleet is as “capable” as his army is…
And if not, tough luck, Europe, maybe the region will be inhabitable again in a few thousand years.
Putin has badly miscalculated both the reaction of the West, and the prowess/ determination of his own military.
Chances are he cannot lastingly „win“ Ukraine. Time appears to be working against him.
I prefer this ending in a whimper rather than a big bang. Possibly the US administration sees this the same way as the idea of that Poland/ US/ Ukraine MIG triangle deal (which may have forced him into a corner also) was rebuked.
SuisseBear
And if not, tough luck, Europe, maybe the region will be inhabitable again in a few thousand years.
It simply is not realistic to contemplate that a Europe ‘region’ will be gone. “For a few thousand years.”
It it goes that far, it is over. Period. Earth? Kapuski.
65 million years ago there was a meteor impact on Earth, ~~~Yucatan Peninsula. Wiped out all life. ALL LIFE. It was a God event.
God: Your call. Time to start over here? Or forget it? So start anew at another venue?
You have many sites to chose from.
Helpful hint: Might consider to do a little reining on the “personal choice” thingy thing that You gave Earthlings. They blew it.
65 million years ago there was a meteor impact on Earth, ~~~Yucatan Peninsula. Wiped out all life. ALL LIFE.
Nope.
Wiped out quite a lot of species, particularly the larger animals of the time.
But didn’t even get all the dinosaurs - we call the descendants of the survivors “birds”.
warrl
65 million years ago there was a meteor impact on Earth, ~~~Yucatan Peninsula. Wiped out all life. ALL LIFE.
Nope.
Wiped out quite a lot of species, particularly the larger animals of the time.
Ya got me!
Cockroaches and crocs also persevered.
Crocs I understand. Under water and all that.
But ROACHES!!!???
And if not, tough luck, Europe, maybe the region will be inhabitable again in a few thousand years.
And yet Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been lived in (and thrived) since WW2. How does that work?
DB2
Easy, DrBob, The bombs were detonated in the air. This allowed significant radioactive decay without imbedding high quantities of reaction products to be imbedded or entrained into solid and liquid matter in the immediate area, while still providing ghastly damage and destruction.
https://www.grunge.com/191959/how-much-radiation-still-exist…
Would a tactical nuke detonation in quantity 100x the tonnage result in similar radiation remnants, or would they be significantly higher?
And yet Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been lived in (and thrived) since WW2. How does that work?
Oh gosh, if you put it like that, let’s just have a little nuclear exchange with Putin and get this thing settled. After all, we’ll all thrive when the smoke clears…
I love ya man, but your passive-aggressive schtick leaves you taking some really silly positions. To the point where I sometimes wonder if you post while intoxicated. Russia has nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads, most of which are many, many, many multiples more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
No one is going to be thriving if those warheads are used in anger. I know you know that. So why pretend to be dumb?
Oh gosh, if you put it like that, let’s just have a little nuclear exchange with Putin and get this thing settled. After all, we’ll all thrive when the smoke clears…
StrawMan is hard at work!
Stating facts is not war mongering.
The Captain
So, JUST GIVE THE DAMM JETS TO UKRAINE!
The official line is that the planes have been retrofitted with NATO control technology that would need to be stripped and replaced with the original controls. Not sure if the Ukrainians can’t fly with the NATO controls, they don’t want the NATO controls falling into the hands of the Russians, or it is just a story because they are avoiding escalation.
Or all three.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been lived in (and thrived) since WW2. How does that work?
—
The bombs were detonated in the air…Would a tactical nuke detonation in quantity 100x the tonnage result in similar radiation remnants, or would they be significantly higher
Well, the higher the yield, the more radioactive material. I think a tactical nuke would, by design, be small so that your own forces could operate in the area.
Oh gosh, if you put it like that, let’s just have a little nuclear exchange with Putin and get this thing settled. After all, we’ll all thrive when the smoke clears…I love ya man, but your passive-aggressive schtick leaves you taking some really silly positions. To the point where I sometimes wonder if you post while intoxicated. Russia has nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads…
Syke, time to switch to decaf. Nobody is advocating a nuclear exchange, least of all me. However, if you have a weapon you need to consider when and how it would be used.
A question: if Putin did use a tactical nuke in the Ukraine because his forces were bogged down somewhere, how would we and/or NATO respond?
DB2
Thinking about the unthinkable
To the point where I sometimes wonder if you post while intoxicated. Russia has nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads, most of which are many, many, many multiples more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
To help visualize, this is an “O” on your screen; it’s a few pixels by a few pixels. Relatively it is the blast radius of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs.
Relatively? Yes, a 50 megaton bomb would have the blast radius of a tangerine. It’s not just magnitudes larger, it’s many many magnitudes larger.
Also worth noting, at the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there was only one additional atomic weapon being prepared for use, the production of the fissile material was so difficult and time consuming. At maximum production is was estimated the country could produce one or two atomic devices per month.
Now, of course, there are thousands and thousands of nuclear devices, each vastly more powerful, each available at the flip of a couple switches. So yeah, not to worry.
A question: if Putin did use a tactical nuke in the Ukraine because his forces were bogged down somewhere, how would we and/or NATO respond?
DB2
Thinking about the unthinkable
Putin’s hand would be stayed by generals who are thinking more clearly than Emperor Wannabe Putin. There HAVE to be enough of them in the Kremlin with better developed skills of critical thinking to keep Vlad’s red button shorted out.
Makes a great story. We need to hope it’s possible.
Putin’s hand would be stayed by generals who are thinking more clearly than Emperor Wannabe Putin. There HAVE to be enough of them in the Kremlin with better developed skills of critical thinking to keep Vlad’s red button shorted out.
I was actually heartened to know there were back channel talks between generals of the US and Russia at the end of the last administration. Whether it was a serious enough concern to warrant it is a conversation for a different board, but the fact that one general picked up the phone to talk with another in the other country, saying in effect “We got this” meant that at the very least there were clear minded adults making sure nothing untoward happened.
That, I think, is pretty good news.
Just park them at the end of the runway, engines running and the keys in the ignition.
Do this at a time when a busload of Ukranian pilots is visiting the airfield.
Their minders will then excuse themselves while they go get a cup of coffee.
As DS1 would put it: I see nothing wrong with this plan
–sutton
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/14/peril-woo…
Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says
‘Peril,’ by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, reveals that Gen. Mark A. Milley called his Chinese counterpart before the election and after Jan. 6 in a bid to avert armed conflict.
The chairman knew that he was “pulling a Schlesinger,” the authors write, resorting to measures resembling the ones taken in August 1974…Though Milley went furthest in seeking to stave off a national security crisis, his alarm was shared throughout the highest ranks of the administration, the authors reveal. CIA Director Gina Haspel, for instance, reportedly told Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”
And if not, tough luck, Europe, maybe the region will be inhabitable again in a few thousand years.
Call the bank, your reality check just bounced.
Y’all might want to talk to the people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today about that.