RE: President Putin is building up his military

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 3:11:47 PM

caitlyn

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The examples you are using, are limited conflicts with limited objectives. I refuse to believe that you can't understand that there is no connection between that sort of conflict, and those of a more global nature. That we are still there ... what does that mean? We are still in Germany. Does that mean the Germans won? We are still in Okinawa, does that mean the Japanese won. Honestly, that has to be the most illogical talking point you have ever presented on this website.

As far as your point in Eastern Europe, I'm willing to read any facts you might present.

Lets change the tact a bit. Since you have all but asserted that military technology plays little part in conflict ... please give us your views on what the most important factors are, and please be kind enough to support it with facts.

Edit to add: By the way ... "you didn't win in Vietnam" would not be considered a fact. We are not ten years old ... you will have to come up with something a bit more advanced.

< Message edited by caitlyn -- 6/5/2007 3:14:11 PM >

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 3:42:20 PM

meatcleaver

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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

The examples you are using, are limited conflicts with limited objectives. I refuse to believe that you can't understand that there is no connection between that sort of conflict, and those of a more global nature. That we are still there ... what does that mean? We are still in Germany. Does that mean the Germans won? We are still in Okinawa, does that mean the Japanese won. Honestly, that has to be the most illogical talking point you have ever presented on this website.

Limited conflicts and limited objectives, they still weren't successful.

Germany and Japan were utterly exhausted and their peoples were totally disillusioned with the regimes that had taken them to war. Both peoples were happy to comply. They are hardly comparable with Iraq which sees itself as the victim of imperial aggression rather than the perpetrators of aggression.

quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

As far as your point in Eastern Europe, I'm willing to read any facts you might present.

It wasn't too difficult for the USSR to secure communist governments in east Europe because there were a lot of communists in east Europe quite happy to go along with the USSR. Austria was the only country they had problems with because they were fighting the Soviets. Should the USSR have gone further west there were enough Italian and French communists that would have also been happy to form governments. As it is they ended up with capitalist governents because they were under US influence.

The fact that Austria and Yugoslavia could escape Soviet domination reinforces the the point that if there wasn't enough opposition to the Soviets in the other states. Having travelled in Soviet dominated Europe during the cold war, there was certainly large pro-Soviet sections of society, large sections of population that thought both sides were as bad as each other and large anti-Soviet secrtions of society. There certainly wasn't majorities of population for either side. Actually, they were like most countries where most of the population don't think as long as they are getting by OK.

quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Lets change the tact a bit. Since you have all but asserted that military technology plays little part in conflict ... please give us your views on what the most important factors are, and please be kind enough to support it with facts.

I didn't say it plays little part, I said it is not the be all and end all. Technology got the US to Bagdad and beat an obsolete and poorly trained standing army but that's all it has done, it can't impose peace and it can't secure a friendly government in place and when the US goes home, there will probably be an even more hostile government to the US within the year so what is the point of all the technology?

Israel is finding the same problem. It has technology and it controls land but it can't impose a peace with its military short of genocide or ethnic cleansing which seems to be its prefered option. Even Lyndon Johnston said in 1967, he feared the war (the '67 war he gave the green light to) would cause more problems than it solved and its consequences would still be felt at the turn of the century.

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 6/5/2007 3:57:11 PM >

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 5:01:28 PM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

The bottom line, is that the Soviet military was not advanced enough to fight the west, until they had captured and digested enough German technology to close that gap. Had there been additional fighting at the end of the war, there would have been no capture of German technology, and no advancement of the Soviet system.

I would like to point out, caitlyn, that Iraqi military technology was nowhere near advanced enough to fight the West. Look where that got us.

Having the best weapons in the world are useless unless you can capture and control territory. We could have shot down or blown up every weapon the Soviets had, and we still would not have had the capability of capturing and controlling Eurasia.

In the old days, the United States and the Soviet Union worked within a framework of mutually assured destruction. We shoot them. They shoot us. We all die. They lack the weapons capability at this point to destroy the United States. So Putin is taking the approach: You shoot us, we shoot your friends. they all die.

Sinergy

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 7:23:23 PM

caitlyn

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Sinergy, the point is phrased from the point of view of the Soviet's being equally an occupation force, in Eastern Europe.

I had expected Meatcleaver to distort this to his own ends, he always does ... but had not expected this of someone on your level. Even an old rival like Michael, seems to have been able to put personal agendas aside, to actually respond to the point that WAS said, rather than inventing a new one.

That we are invaders in Iraq in 2007, has no baring on a hypothetical conflict in Eastern Europe in 1945, were you basically would have had two invading forces. The difficulties of occupation (on which I agree with you, by the way), is also not on point, as the only objective in "not giving the Soviets a free hand in Eastern Europe", would be to eject them by force of arms. Meatcleaver brought up occupation, not I. If you have a response point that travels on that avenue, respond to him, because I never said it.

I mearly said, that at the end of the war, we were not forced to give the Soviets a free hand in Eastern Europe, because the military reality was that we could have quite easily ejected them. I stand by that. The Soviets were a military force that was no match for the United States, at that period in time. They were built to defeat the Germans, and were not equiped to fight the United States.

They were completely outclassed in the air. The didn't build super high performance aircraft, because they outnumbered the Germans five-to-one ... so they didn't need to. Against the U.S. Army Air Corps, they would have been outnumbered more than two-to-one in fighters, and by a percentage not easy to calculate in strategic bombers ... and Amarican aircraft made the Soviets look primative by comparison.

They had no effective navy, and no defense against someone that did ... because they didn't need one against Germany, nor did they need to defend against one. The Americans had a huge and highly professional navy, probably the best overall service arm, of any nation that participated in the war (including the fleet air arm and Marines, of course).

In the area of logistics, Soviet formations basically carried their supplies with them, and could withdraw to refit, when exhausted. This was possible against the Germans, because they vastly outnumbered them, and could withdraw to safe areas to refit. Against the United States, they would not have had a significant numerical advantage, and there would be no safe places to concentrate the refit, when the other side has a huge strategic bomber fleet of aircraft, that they didn't even have a fighter with a chance of shooting one down.

You are prone to ask for proof or backing ... do you have any that actually dispute the original point ... or are you just running for Congress?

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 7:31:22 PM

Sinergy

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As I recall, the Soviet Union successfully conquered and occupied large parts of eastern Europe for quite some time. The US raced to stop them from conquering Germany since it was perceived (correctly) that Stalin would not give up the countries he conquered.

I am not disputing your point. The US could have gone to war with the USSR in Eastern Europe, but then what? They would do the same thing to us that they did to Germany, and Germany's superior military, if we were silly enough to invade Russia.

Sinergy

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RE: President Putin is building up his military - 6/5/2007 7:49:43 PM

caitlyn

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Invading Russia is not on point.

Germany did not have a superior military in comparison to the Soviets. The Soviet T-34/85 and JS-2 were more than a match for the German Panther G and Tiger II. The Germans flew better aircraft, but were heavily outnumbered and couldn't protect their air fields. Soviet rocket artillery got a free pass against the Germans, because the Germans had no air assets to attack these highly vulnerable vehicles ... and the Soviets had huge numerical advantages.

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