I sure didn't. I had elaborate ideas about how we could help the Ukrainians sink the black sea fleet on our behalf. And even then I figured we'd have to subsidize their insurance. Turns out they were just going to back down lol
Source Article (Forbes)
Russia responded by blowing up the Danube port. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hits-port-grain-silo-ukraines-odesa-region-official-2023-08-02/
Ah, there it is. That'll definitely cause problems, though I do wonder if this is going to work for them for very long.
I have to admit that I rolled my eyes at the idea that Putin would start a war with Israel.
Israel commits a dozen war crimes by breakfast. All Russian civilian areas would be bombed to hell of he started a war with them.
Yeah, they can barely handle Ukraine it seems, so my impression is they’d be fucked. However that could also pull in Iran and Saudi, which would be bad news for the world in general.
I suspect that Israel would respond against the Russian-supported regime in Syria, rather than in Ukraine.
Israel per se has fuck all to do with this, to be honest. Attacking a foreign flagged civilian vessel is a big deal, especially when the eyes of the world are upon you and you cannot declare something to have happened on the fog of war. There’s an American P-8, which is an intelligence as well as an anti-ship/anti-sub plane, covering the ship. No one knows what it’s rules of engagement are, but the implication is that it’s there to defend the civilian ship. Attacking the US plane would be an act of war. Attacking the ship may trigger the American plane to defend it by launching weapons against the attacking vessel.
The one thing that the Russians could legitimately do is block the ship physically. They can play chicken by threatening to steer into it, but I can’t think that they’d risk widening the war at this point. No shade on Ukraine - this one is going to go down as one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare - but if they can’t make progress against Ukraine then NATO will go through them like crap through a goose.
Sure, it’s been pretty obvious that NATO would massacre the fuck out of them. Doubtlessly Putin has known that for some time.
I don't think we need to be caring about who would win in a conventional war with Russia. We need to be worrying about who would lose in a nuclear exchange with them.
Everyone. Themselves included
pretty much everyone is not stupid enough to do that, because as we've known since the 60s at least, we'd all lose. Russia has nuke subs ready to do retaliation, we have a fuckton of them too, China does, random other countries like the EU and even Israel is ready to nuke the fuck out of everyone else just in case. Putin makes weak nuclear threats and he knows that "we'll nuke you!" would result in most of Russia being completely smashed, along with most of the EU and USA. The danger is some idiot feeling nihilistic and egotistical enough to try it. It would never be a reasonable policy decision by any country.
You'd think the Russians would be familiar with the ole Rush B strat by now. Fkn noobs
What they weren't expecting was a rush on ~~sea~~ C!
I’ll admit while reading this I was quite concerned. NATO called Putin’s bluff and Putin looks like a fool. But what if the grain shipments had been sunken? Then NATO shoots fires at the Russian ships? And then what?
The usual (more-or-less internationally accepted) way to do a blockade is to intercept ships of a neutral flag and order them to turn around. Just shooting them with anti-ship missiles would be totally out-of-line and upset China, so I'm not surprised that Russia didn't do that.
Even if they did, I don't think the next rung on the escalation ladder is just shooting at the RU ship ourselves. If it were me in charge (very non-credible take incoming), I'd probably have US-gov-insured ships sail under Turkish flags with Turkish escorts go get the grain, and/or send Ukraine some goodies to make it too risky for Russia to occupy the western Black Sea.
I mostly expected them to try something intermediate, like intercepting with fast torpedo boats, subs or jets. Presumably they gamed that out and concluded it wouldn't work? Then again, this is Russia so maybe they just fucked up.
"What if" is irrelevant because they won't but the "then what" is they would cry about that too and demand we stop doing that too and continue their impotent tantrum that the world continues to not let them do what they want to do, namely getting the Soviet Union back. Russia is impotent. Their threats don't get them what they want. Their military doesn't get them what they want. And most importantly, because I think I know where you're going with this, their nukes do not get them what they want. Their nukes only get them dead, which is something Russia only wants to happen to a large subset of their population, notably not including their leadership, and nukes are very dangerous to them and not something they will ever consider because their lives depend on it. Their clandestine political activities almost got them what they want and worked in several other situations, and it makes sense that they will continue to exploit those as much as they are able to. Nukes are not actually on the table, no matter how much they shout about them.
You can't keep crying out, "we got nukes and aren't afraid to use them" and not expect the world to eventually stop giving a fuck about their empty threats. If they set off a nuke like Best Korea, they might get some real negotiations going.
Go ahead moskals, try to shoot it down :)
See what fucking happens
Russia's like sole lucid foreign policy moment was to recognize the grain deal was what gained it credibility for much of the world. The world is skeptical of the US screaming it's head off about Russian imperialism and whatever but then Russia unilaterally ends the grain deal, destroys grain, pledges to blockade grain and drive up the price
Really hope Ukraine can correctly tell the world "we want to bring you grain but they won't let us"
beyond that, this is like way more explicit than Obama's "red line," just a complete demonstration that you won't do shit
They don't want to open up any more fronts. They already can't cope with the one they have.
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