Re: The situation in Syria
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2022 9:08 am
Hello Everyone,
Thought I’d offer some more info on the Ukraine war for anyone interested. My (amateur armchair) assessment, which I believe has already been touched on in previous posts, is that neither Ukraine nor Russia are currently ‘winning’.
The only party that could legitimately be seen as winning (at current) would be the US/NATO. Ukraine lies in ruins and many tens of thousands (possibly already over 100,000, if the full truth would be known about military and civilian casualties) of Ukrainians have already been killed, while it would appear that, at current, 10,000-20,000 Russians and their allies have been killed since hostilities began in late February this year.
The US/NATO, meanwhile, has suffered virtually zero casualties (besides some mercenaries, special forces types, etc) in its proxy war against Russia. So, Ukraine is in ruins, Russian forces are bogged down, but clearly have been on the backfoot for the last couple of months, while NATO-led Ukrainian forces are clearly ascendant, winning back cities and territory.
One could argue that this means that Ukraine is currently ‘winning’ but, as mentioned, the land is in ruins and countless of its people are dead, while 15-20% of the country is still occupied by Russian forces. I would call neither the Russian position, nor the Ukrainian position, as a winning one at current. It’s the military-industrial complex (Washington, NATO, etc) that is clearly winning at this stage.
I’ve never been to war, nor even in the military, but I saw a very sobering war movie recently that I encourage you to watch. It’s the new film ‘All quiet on the western front’, produced by Netflix, which details the battle between German and French forces in WWI. I believe it is based on a novel written by a German survivor of the war.
Unlike most other Netflix content, there are no ‘woke’ agendas pushed in the film, and the experience of watching the film is not ruined by the illusion-killing appearance of famous movie stars pretending to be soldiers. The actors are all unknowns, it’s filmed from the German perspective and it comes across as very raw/real. It’s just a basic movie tip for you, and if you have Netflix, and two or three spare hours, I recommend that you watch it, in its original German-language audio with English subtitles.
Back to the topic of the Ukraine war; I am generally not a fan of the news site, ‘1945’, which largely comes across as a pro-war mouthpiece of the military-industrial complex. That aside, the odd balanced article can be found there, and I’ve recently come across several good contributions from a writer called Daniel Davis.
He has recently written a sequence of articles on the current situation in the war, with predictions about the near-and-medium term future. Amid all of the recent Russian setbacks on the battlefield, and talk of Putin’s partial mobilization of Russian reserve troops to send to the front, there has been a lot of chatter about a coming Winter offensive, in which Russian forces would try to regain the ascendency and reverse their recent setbacks.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has continued to talk up its own (NATO-backed) plans to expand its offensive against the Russians. I don’t know how this war is going to pan out. Yes, Russia and Ukraine are both currently losing big-time, but it also has to be remembered that the US has not had a good track record of winning wars since the end of the second world war.
It would be a brave or unwise person, at this point, who would claim to have a good idea of how this war is going to pan out. I will provide links to three of the aforementioned articles below, in order of their release:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... o-ukraine/
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... -downfall/
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... f-weapons/
Thought I’d offer some more info on the Ukraine war for anyone interested. My (amateur armchair) assessment, which I believe has already been touched on in previous posts, is that neither Ukraine nor Russia are currently ‘winning’.
The only party that could legitimately be seen as winning (at current) would be the US/NATO. Ukraine lies in ruins and many tens of thousands (possibly already over 100,000, if the full truth would be known about military and civilian casualties) of Ukrainians have already been killed, while it would appear that, at current, 10,000-20,000 Russians and their allies have been killed since hostilities began in late February this year.
The US/NATO, meanwhile, has suffered virtually zero casualties (besides some mercenaries, special forces types, etc) in its proxy war against Russia. So, Ukraine is in ruins, Russian forces are bogged down, but clearly have been on the backfoot for the last couple of months, while NATO-led Ukrainian forces are clearly ascendant, winning back cities and territory.
One could argue that this means that Ukraine is currently ‘winning’ but, as mentioned, the land is in ruins and countless of its people are dead, while 15-20% of the country is still occupied by Russian forces. I would call neither the Russian position, nor the Ukrainian position, as a winning one at current. It’s the military-industrial complex (Washington, NATO, etc) that is clearly winning at this stage.
I’ve never been to war, nor even in the military, but I saw a very sobering war movie recently that I encourage you to watch. It’s the new film ‘All quiet on the western front’, produced by Netflix, which details the battle between German and French forces in WWI. I believe it is based on a novel written by a German survivor of the war.
Unlike most other Netflix content, there are no ‘woke’ agendas pushed in the film, and the experience of watching the film is not ruined by the illusion-killing appearance of famous movie stars pretending to be soldiers. The actors are all unknowns, it’s filmed from the German perspective and it comes across as very raw/real. It’s just a basic movie tip for you, and if you have Netflix, and two or three spare hours, I recommend that you watch it, in its original German-language audio with English subtitles.
Back to the topic of the Ukraine war; I am generally not a fan of the news site, ‘1945’, which largely comes across as a pro-war mouthpiece of the military-industrial complex. That aside, the odd balanced article can be found there, and I’ve recently come across several good contributions from a writer called Daniel Davis.
He has recently written a sequence of articles on the current situation in the war, with predictions about the near-and-medium term future. Amid all of the recent Russian setbacks on the battlefield, and talk of Putin’s partial mobilization of Russian reserve troops to send to the front, there has been a lot of chatter about a coming Winter offensive, in which Russian forces would try to regain the ascendency and reverse their recent setbacks.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has continued to talk up its own (NATO-backed) plans to expand its offensive against the Russians. I don’t know how this war is going to pan out. Yes, Russia and Ukraine are both currently losing big-time, but it also has to be remembered that the US has not had a good track record of winning wars since the end of the second world war.
It would be a brave or unwise person, at this point, who would claim to have a good idea of how this war is going to pan out. I will provide links to three of the aforementioned articles below, in order of their release:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... o-ukraine/
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... -downfall/
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/11/put ... f-weapons/