Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Syt]

Austria pledges to raise military spending. To 1% of GDP (currently 0.74%), starting next year. That seems ... modest. Esp. since Austrian military equipment and maintenance is possibly in worse shape than the German one.

[Habbaku]

It's weird Austria would even bother.

[celedhring]

Spain's junior coalition partners are vehemently against it (even sending weapons has been controversial), so I don't think it will happen - in the short term, at least.

[Syt]

It's weird Austria would even bother.

They've been involved in a number of UN missions, like Golan Heights (until the civil war in Syria when they hightailed out of there ).

https://www.austria.org/peacekeeping-operations

[Syt]

https://twitter.com/UN_HRC/status/1499696876601462789?s=20&t=R8XouCL9eDPBgBh7G9rniA

UN Human Rights Council 📍 #HRC49@UN_HRC·5h🔴 BREAKING

The Human Rights Council has decided to urgently establish an independent international commission of inquiry as a result of #Russia's aggression against #Ukraine.

✅ YES: 32
❌ NO: 2
➖ ABSTENTIONS: 13

[Tamas]

This cannot possibly be going well for Russia: https://twitter.com/i/status/1499433497076846592

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's weird Austria would even bother.

Countries as small as Austria are in a weird position because nothing they really do matters here, so is it really meaningful to move their military spending to X amount, I don't know.

[Habbaku]

It's weird Austria would even bother.

Countries as small as Austria are in a weird position because nothing they really do matters here, so is it really meaningful to move their military spending to X amount, I don't know.

That's what I mean. Austria increasing its military budget by 33% looks impressive on paper, but in reality might outfit an additional 100 Salzburger militia. It's dumb and pointless. They'd be better off increasing some sort of permanent humanitarian aid budget or improving the quality of roads that NATO troops would drive through.

[The Minsky Moment]

A no fly zone is a pretty silly idea.  It made sense in Khurdistan because the Khurds didn't have an air force or air defenses and Saddam did.  We would be flying fighter cover for Ukrainian air strikes.  That's going to war.

It makes no sense now, however . . .

If the war plays out with Russia bulldozing through the country and razing cities to the ground, and masses of displaced civilians flee to the western regions Ukraine, the question will be raised whether to provide protection to the western "safe zones"

[DGuller]

I wonder if a combined EU military is in the cards at some point.  It does seem highly wasteful to have two dozen separate armies, with extreme duplication of fixed costs.  From the EU point of view, it seems that the Austria money dedicated to the military would be much better spent on the German army than on their own.

[The Minsky Moment]

It's weird Austria would even bother.

Normally they wouldn't but Przemyśl is under threat.

[The Minsky Moment]

I wonder if a combined EU military is in the cards at some point.  It does seem highly wasteful to have two dozen separate armies, with extreme duplication of fixed costs.  From the EU point of view, it seems that the Austria money dedicated to the military would be much better spent on the German army than on their own.

I've always been of the view that the US should not discourage that development. 

The departure of the UK from the EU on the one hand would weaken the effectiveness of such a force but on the other hand makes it more feasible. 

[Admiral Yi]

It makes no sense now, however . . .

If the war plays out with Russia bulldozing through the country and razing cities to the ground, and masses of displaced civilians flee to the western regions Ukraine, the question will be raised whether to provide protection to the western "safe zones"

Sure, if the Russians start carpet bombing refugee tent cities.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Saw some recommendations from Dr. John Deni of the Atlantic Council on some things NATO should start doing ASAP for longer term deterrence toward Putin/Russia:

1. Currently there are four Enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroups deployed to the three Baltics and Poland. Each is around 1200 strong. Deni recommends increasing the size of each Battlegroup to full enhanced brigade strength of around 5000. He also makes some commonsense recommendations that the groups use all the same (U.S. made) information and communications equipment, which right now they do not do. This would mean the EFPs in total would number 20,000--this isn't going to stop a Russian offensive, but it also is going to make it real hard for Putin to "Crimea" one of the Baltics with a small "little green men" force. A large Russian offensive won't materialize out of the black of night, it requires logistical pre-positioning and weeks of preparation time, so the EFPs don't have to be able to fend off a large Russian offensive, but just make it hard to do anything less and have a shot of success. He also suggests U.S. troops be embedded with all four EFPs (right now they are only embedded in the Polish one.)

2. He thinks NATO needs to trim its mission. NATO was formed for collective defensive primarily in Europe. It has expanded its mission to things like security and cooperation in Africa and even in some cases Asia, and other ancillary things. There is a strong argument that other entities should take the lead on those, but NATO needs to be dedicated to European defense from Russia.

3. Large general deployments to Eastern Europe. This would be Romania and Poland. Realistically what we need is a big enough force that if we start to see a Russian mobilization toward the Baltics or some other NATO target, we can shift these troops to that area as a major deterrent--this force itself may not be enough to win a war against Russia, but would need to be big enough so that in an initial attack they couldn't be easily overwhelmed--which gives the U.S. time to begin a full mobilization/deployment of a large military force. [This isn't too different from what U.S. troops were setup for in West Germany during the Cold War. There was never a real time when it was thought our forces there could stop the Soviets flat at the border, but it was enough that there'd be a real bad fight about it, and that would give time for more forces to be brought in, and would also make it unequivocal that going into West Germany would be a full scale war with the United States and nothing less.]

4. More tasking of NATO organizations to handle Russian asymmetrical warfare, information warfare etc.

[celedhring]

he became most toxic and resorted to name-calling, calling me "Heresiarch"

Seems an appropiate insult for a HIS game.