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Cold/hot weather injury tags
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Apr 4, 2014 12:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd9rsmD4HiM Linking without comment beyond that it touches on some foreign policy issues (Euro and elsewhere) and also briefly on energy policy, and that I wish we could have public debates like this here. It's a pretty good watch if you have the time.
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Apr 4, 2014 15:00
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Yesterday Russia pulled its ambassador to NATO. I'm not really sure this has much significance but it does exemplify the tit-for-tat stance Russia is taking, claiming that it is only reacting in kind to Western aggressions. Russia is also significantly expanding the military draft in the Dagestan and Caucasus regions. Previously they avoided pulling from these areas to avoid bringing related ethnic problems into the military community, but apparently have now weighed the cost-benefit differently. It is unclear if this increased draft will be met with reductions among ethnic Russian areas (whose young male populations are declining anyway) or if it's intended as part of a bulking up of military manpower. It's worth noting that drafting able-bodied men from non-'Russian' territories, often shipping them off to other parts of the realm without any real intention of ever returning them, is an old traditional tactic of ethnic dissolution going back to Tsarist times (this is how my great grandfather and other family members ended up in the Tsar's army and the Revolution.)
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Apr 4, 2014 15:13
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Your family chased my family out of Russia.
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Apr 4, 2014 16:46
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In Ukraine news Darth Vader was prevented from registered for the election. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26882664 quote:Ukrainian authorities have rejected a bid from a man calling himself Darth Vader, who wants to run in the presidential elections. Check out 2:35 on for the "Assassination Attempt" during his last conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4yVdqwOqA4
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Apr 4, 2014 16:49
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Operation American SpringCrazy people website posted:Concept of Operations: lol. Good to see the summer crazy people season is starting early for DC.
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Apr 4, 2014 19:23
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The special forces have already been moved into Ukraine and some are moving into EU. ~1000 people in total.Snowdens Secret posted:^^^ I haven't seen anything about it but this mentions Afghanistan: Their military avionics are made in Russia, they can't cut themselves away from the spare parts and maintenance supply. permabanned fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 19:29
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Snowdens Secret posted:I don't know about issuing weapons but I am fully for Army personnel on domestic bases being required to wear full SAPI plate, helmet, eyepro at all times (plus reflective belts) lmfao yes
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Apr 4, 2014 19:44
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Operation American Spring I wonder how they're deriving "comprise a tribunal" from "unswerving loyalty to the US Constitution" as the only tribunals in the Constitution are courts answerable to the Supreme Court. Perhaps they're using a different usage of 'tribunal.' A French concept, given the name of a movement associated (in the popular mind) with the Muslim Brotherhood - a pedigree the 10 million american spring members can surely get behind.
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Apr 4, 2014 20:09
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Operation American Spring Keep a photo album. You can show your kids how hosed-up politics in our time was.
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Apr 4, 2014 20:18
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permabanned posted:The special forces have already been moved into Ukraine and some are moving into EU. ~1000 people in total. Wait, whose special forces? That seems like crazy brinkmanship.
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Apr 4, 2014 21:31
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJK00daiKD8 Skip to about 3:00 if you're bored but watch the whole thing for the full effect. I thought about putting it in the drunk thread instead.
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Apr 4, 2014 21:37
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Frosted Flake posted:Wait, whose special forces? Detachments of the special forces of the Russian paratroops for the Ukraine - 55 men per regiment. GRU 'engineering' forces for the rest of the EU.
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Apr 4, 2014 21:57
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permabanned posted:Ukraine isn't a member of NATO, even though some Ukrainian troops participated in FOB maintenance operations and small-scale patrol duty in Iraq. So just so we're clear, you're claiming that the Russians are deploying (covert) military forces into the "rest of the EU" (which presumably includes NATO countries)? I'll completely buy them moving into Ukraine but NATO countries is loving insane and you need to provide a source. (Because I don't believe you.)
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Apr 4, 2014 23:34
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I don't know anything about no Russian Special Forces but Hagel's talking about sending another 5,000 troops to Europe permanently http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-04/hagel-says-u-s-mulls-adding-brigade-to-counter-russia.html quote:Asked if those included permanently stationing a third brigade of 5,000 troops in Europe, Hagel said, “That’s all part of the measures that could be considered.” I guess he's hoping the Euros just pull the funding from behind their ears or something. The Poles want two brigades stationed in Poland so I guess they're ready to come up with something.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:43
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Whip Slagcheek posted:Operation American Spring Hope this turns out to be like that Truckers' Ride for the Constitution where I was promised big rigs blocking every street in DC and instead got the usual 495 traffic. That being said, I'd love to see the Million Rascal Scooter Caravan.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:44
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suboptimal posted:Hope this turns out to be like that Truckers' Ride for the Constitution where I was promised big rigs blocking every street in DC and instead got the usual 495 traffic. Just go to a Walmart Supercenter for that.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:55
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suboptimal posted:That being said, I'd love to see the Million Rascal Scooter Caravan. That happens every day at Walmart.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:56
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suboptimal posted:Hope this turns out to be like that Truckers' Ride for the Constitution where I was promised big rigs blocking every street in DC and instead got the usual 495 traffic. The only places Google's showing it mentioned are Wonkette, Mother Jones and Infowars so it's a safe bet it's some two-bit crank pulled into the light for everyone to laugh at. The Truckers' Ride got a lot more press, even if it was just for mockery / explaining why the idea was stupid. The daily news cycle on the normal 'right wing' sites today is all Leland Yee, that Mozilla guy getting lynched, and how the new Captain America movie is crap. Snowdens Secret fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 23:59
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Snowdens Secret posted:The Poles want two brigades stationed in Poland so I guess they're ready to come up with something. Don't the Poles have a pretty decent military? I thought I remembered reading that they punch a bit above their weight.
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Apr 5, 2014 02:39
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Zeroisanumber posted:Don't the Poles have a pretty decent military? I thought I remembered reading that they punch a bit above their weight. According to Wikipedia they have 120,000 active members and another 515,000 reservists and their budget is 1.95% of GDP, which is higher than Canada or Australia.
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Apr 5, 2014 03:13
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Here's the Polish request for 10k troops: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-territory.html There's this article on Polish mil strength: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/2ae1e101196d But light wiki'ing implies it's exaggerated, because the equipment numbers are swollen with obsolete Warsaw Pact leftovers that have been or are being retired. The Poles may punch above their weight, but that's because like most of the old Soviet satellites they're drat near weightless. Their GDP is much lower than the rest of the Western world, so their 2% budget is far less significant than it looks. Russia probably has more men and equipment mobilized in/around Ukraine right now than the entire Polish army force. And yes, Poland is part of NATO, but the counterpart to Poland punching above its weight is that an awful lot of western NATO countries punch well below theirs; the last few weeks have been full of articles about this but I figure you guys'd get tired of them after the fifth or sixth. An example: quote:General Sir Richard Shirreff, the outgoing Nato deputy supreme commander, became the latest senior commander to express fears about defence cuts. And another: quote:As Theodore Roosevelt once quipped, words only go so far. They can even do you harm if you don’t think them through or back them up. Is it truly in the American interest to admit additional former Soviet republics, such as Georgia, into NATO? If so, is the United States willing and able to defend these new commitments if confronted? Answering the former should generate healthy debate, but America’s response to the latter must be clear and definitive. Expanding American defense commitments without building and maintaining the force needed to protect them is not only strategically incoherent; it risks a far more dangerous outcome than not proclaiming anything at all. Speaking loudly without a stick is a recipe for disaster. And that's kind of the problem. Because of similar sentiments to that survey I linked a few days ago, there's question of whether a NATO response would be swift and sure enough to repel, say, a Russian invasion of Poland, before the entire country is seized. Once the country is seized, the political will to wage a war of liberation will be greatly reduced. Poland's not dumb, they know the deterrent effect ten thousand American troops have, and knows if they were attacked that 10,000 encircled or imprisoned American soldiers will be a much greater motivator than Pollack cries for help.
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Apr 5, 2014 03:17
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One of the things to take into consideration with Poland is that not only is their military an all-volunteer force, but they're substantially better trained than their Russian counterparts (whose ranks are largely conscripted). Obviously they're not on the same level as say, France, but they're certainly not Georgia.
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Apr 5, 2014 07:37
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2f92aa6-bbb5-11e3-84f1-00144feabdc0.htmlquote:The Obama administration has warned Beijing not to use force or coercive tactics to pursue its territorial claims in Asia, saying that sanctions placed on Russia for annexing Crimea should have a “chilling effect” on any such plans in China. The good news is that China would probably be more reactive to sanctions, the bad news is that we may be no more able to place them on China than Euroland is on Russia. There's also a theory that Russia is holding back in the West for fear if they get too bogged down there, the Chinese will take a bite out of their rear end in the East, but I think that's an unrealistic short-term concern given the info we have.
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Apr 5, 2014 14:20
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At the same time the Japanese are worried that the US wouldn't respond militarily if the Chinese opted to seize, say, the Senkaku's. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/world/asia/us-response-to-crimea-worries-japanese-leaders.html?hp quote:TOKYO — When President Bill Clinton signed a 1994 agreement promising to “respect” the territorial integrity of Ukraine if it gave up its nuclear weapons, there was little thought then of how that obscure diplomatic pact — called the Budapest Memorandum — might affect the long-running defense partnership between the United States and Japan. It bears noting however that the American alliance with Japan is far more important than anything Ukraine offers, and far more relevant to American interests. It should also be kept in mind that Japanese conservatives have been looking for any excuse they can find to rearm and get an power-projection military plus nukes, so this could simply be them seizing on the opportunity to push that.
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Apr 5, 2014 20:56
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So did Ukraine seriously think that the Budapest Memorandum was a binding document that committed the US to come rushing to defend their territorial integrity? I'm sorry, I don't understand how it's suddenly US "weakness" because a bunch of drunk Eastern Europeans couldn't be bothered to understand basic loving language in a non-binding memorandum. Guess you should've had someone halfway competent in the reading comprehension department heading up your foreign policy thinking? Also yes, this is 100% an effort by the right-wingers in Japan to use the issue to further bolster their push to get a real military. \/ welp \/ iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 21:13
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iyaayas01 posted:So did Ukraine seriously think that the Budapest Memorandum was a binding document that committed the US to come rushing to defend their territorial integrity? apparently that is a large part of why ukraine let their military decay to the point it has, they legitimately thought the US and the UK would step in and protect them in the event they got invaded
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Apr 5, 2014 21:16
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The Budapest Memorandum isn't quite as open and shut as iyaayas is making out. This is practically the whole thing:quote:1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine. Points 4 and 5 are clearly about nukes, but 1, 2, 3 are not, and it's arguable that Russia has violated all three (you can argue whether Russia has 'used' their weapons in Crimea or not.) The big problem (from Ukraine's side) with the BM is, as the above text makes obvious, the only actual commitment in case of violation is to 'consult', which has been done (and is a total waste of time) and even if Ukraine was bathed in atomic fire the most action necessary is to bring it up in front of the UNSC (where all signatories have a veto anyway.) So basically we've followed the letter of the law, but clearly not done what at least the Ukrainians thought was intended, and it's understandable if countries without extremely explicit mutual defense agreements (i.e. NATO) are re-evaluating their dependency on the US umbrella. And it's not because we're not running in guns a-blazin', it's because we explicitly and immediately ruled out use of force, which is a very different stance.
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Apr 5, 2014 21:43
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Snowdens Secret posted:The Budapest Memorandum isn't quite as open and shut as iyaayas is making out. This is practically the whole thing: Again, I don't understand how the Ukrainians thought that it was anything other than a feel good piece of paper that convinced them (stupidly) to give up their nukes. Because that's all it was. If they honestly thought a piece of paper that the Russians agreed to right after the Wall came down was going to be enough to ever prevent them from being under threat of Russian aggression, they're loving idiots. And if we're going to play word games with what meant what, you could make a case that the UK violated paragraph three first through their inducement to get Ukraine to join the EU. It's worth mentioning that most of the non-NATO countries who would fall under our umbrella have explicit mutual defense agreements with us (Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines are the first that immediately come to mind.) The big ones that aren't on that list would be countries in the Middle East, but that has always been a much thornier region as far as US engagement so I'd find it hard to believe that any of the players in the region (Israel, Saudis, the other Gulf States) would be hugely surprised if the US failed to fully come to their aid in a questionable circumstance.
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Apr 5, 2014 21:55
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Just taking Japan as an example, though, the text isn't that different:quote:ARTICLE V Again, any attack gets reported to the UNSC, which is explicitly not required to do anything about it. "Act to meet the common danger" can mean a lot of things. It should be noted that it's a lot more vague than NATO Article V: quote:The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. The NATO text expects action explicitly including 'use of armed force' before or at most in parallel with UNSC action, not gated by it. That's a huuuuge difference if you're getting attacked by a UNSC veto holder. There's also a world of difference between recognizing an attack 'is dangerous to (our) peace and safety' and 'shall be considered an attack against them all'. All sorts of poo poo is dangerous to our peace and safety that we don't spin up the bombers for. The Japan agreement also includes the wiggle text 'in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.' That quite obviously was put in there as part of restricting Japan to self defense - the entire agreement was foisted on the relatively unwilling Japanese - but it could be interpreted by a recalcitrant US President as saying if Congress doesn't approve force, then that absolves the US from further commitments.
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Apr 5, 2014 22:14
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Snowdens Secret posted:Just taking Japan as an example, though, the text isn't that different: Short of some pretty wild circumstances we would most definitely get involved in a fight between China and Japan. Ukraine is a corrupt backwater that we have zero strategic interest in, Japan is a major East Asian ally. Though you're right in that the treaty doesn't automatically commit us to Japan's defense in the same way that NATO does.
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Apr 5, 2014 22:31
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I wish I shared some people here's confidence that the US would step in in the case of a Japan-China conflict, but in reality I don't think it's as sure as people hope in every situation. In an open all-or-nothing war between China and Japan the US would almost certainly step in, but there's a whole gradient of conflict where China throws around its weight without the US doing poo poo to stop them. This is also keeping in mind that we don't know what the political situation will be in the future; for all the poo poo Obama's been getting from right wing media he's clearly not opposed to the use of force when prudent (see his attempts to be more materially involved in Syria), but that's not guaranteed in the future, and a modern military that could serve as a deterrent to China can't necessarily be built up over the course of a couple years. Of course you'll have a hard time convincing the Japanese people of this; pacifism to a fault has been beaten into the minds of enough of the Japanese population (they even have a specific word for their form of knee-jerk pacifism; 平和ぼけ, heiwa-boke, literally peace-senility) that actually changing the current dynamic will take time and a lot of political capital. In the meantime it's looking like they're gearing up to likely subsidize their neighbors who are arrayed against China, or if nothing else offer more advanced weapons to regional partners. At least I'm hoping that they have some greater strategic objectives in mind, as opposed to just shilling for their arms industry.
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Apr 6, 2014 09:28
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iyaayas01 posted:Again, I don't understand how the Ukrainians thought that it was anything other than a feel good piece of paper that convinced them (stupidly) to give up their nukes. Because that's all it was. If they honestly thought a piece of paper that the Russians agreed to right after the Wall came down was going to be enough to ever prevent them from being under threat of Russian aggression, they're loving idiots. And if we're going to play word games with what meant what, you could make a case that the UK violated paragraph three first through their inducement to get Ukraine to join the EU. They did so because the signatories of said paper convinced them that's what it meant, that their security was guaranteed. (granted, it was 1994 US telling them that they would make sure 1994 Russia didn't pull some poo poo) Now you could say they should have realized that 20 years down the line there would be new people in all these places and anything not on paper would have been forgotten. But I don't think there is any doubt that in the smoke filled back rooms the Ukrainians were being promised and guaranteed their territorial integrity by the signatory powers in exchange for the nukes. Now it turns out that it is a worthless piece of paper. And that American promises don't mean poo poo when the it hits the fan. The entire point of a guarantee is that you actually take real and meaningful action to back it up. Or else is is by it's very description not a guarantee of anything. Point is, the US has said a lot of things over the years. And a lot of countries have based their policies on the understanding that the US would honor it's word. And this lack of meaningful action calls into question every last more or less formal security guarantee underpinning the world diplomatic status quo. It's a big loving deal. Also, laughing and telling everyone "haha, those dumbshits trusted us" is not terribly good foreign policy. Courthouse fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 20:28
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Courthouse posted:They did so because the signatories of said paper convinced them that's what it meant, that their security was guaranteed. (granted, it was 1994 US telling them that they would make sure 1994 Russia didn't pull some poo poo) Now you could say they should have realized that 20 years down the line there would be new people in all these places and anything not on paper would have been forgotten. But I don't think there is any doubt that in the smoke filled back rooms the Ukrainians were being promised and guaranteed their territorial integrity by the signatory powers in exchange for the nukes. That is one hell of an assumption, saying there "isn't any doubt" that we guaranteed their territorial integrity. I know you won't be able to prove it, so I won't ask you to, but I'll just reiterate that it is one hell of an assumption and I think saying there isn't any doubt is much too strong of a statement, seeing as how the lack of any concrete proof by definition means there is doubt. As for American promises not meaning poo poo...well yes, if by "promises" you mean "supposed backroom dealings that no one has any proof of and that we can't actually definitively state even occurred," then yes, I guess those promises probably don't count for much. If by "promises" you mean "actual publicly agreed upon statements where we both signed on the dotted line and unambiguously agreed upon a given policy," I think we need to wait until Russian tanks are rolling into Poland or the Chinese land troops on the Senkakus before we state that American promises aren't worth poo poo. So I think you're hyperventilating a bit when you state that it's a "big loving deal" that we didn't ride to the rescue of Ukraine based on some supposed unwritten unrecorded backroom dealings 20 years ago.
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Apr 6, 2014 20:46
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cool http://www.popsci.com/article/techn...ts-fda-approval
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Apr 6, 2014 21:12
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The idea that we'd committed to defending Ukraine from aggression, even if not explicitly spelled out, is pretty widespread. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/30/obama-must-show-he-ll-use-military-means-to-deter-russia-in-ukraine.html quote:When Obama said that the United States would do nothing militarily to protect Ukraine against an attack, he was in effect walking away from the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 signed by Ukraine, Russia, Britain and America. By this paper, Ukraine gave back its nuclear weapons to Russia on a pledge by all parties not to violate Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. To be sure, neither London nor Washington was legally obliged to defend Ukraine if attacked. But it is perfectly obvious that Kiev never would have given up its nukes unless it believed the U.S. would come to its defense in some meaningful fashion. Mind you that's from a guy who sits on the board of the Council of Foreign Relations alongside Madeline Albright, whose signature is on the Budapest Memorandum. Also note Daily Beast running an editorial by a Democrat from the Carter administration isn't exactly 'the right wing media'. LimburgLimbo posted:I wish I shared some people here's confidence that the US would step in in the case of a Japan-China conflict, but in reality I don't think it's as sure as people hope in every situation. In an open all-or-nothing war between China and Japan the US would almost certainly step in, but there's a whole gradient of conflict where China throws around its weight without the US doing poo poo to stop them. The thing is, there's dick and squat Ukraine can do in the near-term to reshape its military to deter Russia. Japan, on the other hand, has the luxury of probably (cross fingers) at least a few years before things get unbearably hot. So, now is the time to re-evaluate what foreign commitments and defense requirements will be, not when PLAN ships are blockading your ports. Obama's term isn't far from over, so it's unlikely he'll be in office when poo poo actually goes down. But Japan has to see the possibility of a future US President, five, ten, twenty years from now, governing a poorer USA with an even more shrunken military, sharing Obama's fetish that the foreign policy promises and statements of past administrations, even of his own party, don't tie his hands. Hell, I've posted on this before, but right now we've already shown we're unwilling to enforce explicitly written out treaties; there's not much further down the trust ladder to go from here. Whether Japan has enough time to build a deterrent or not remains to be seen, but the situation certainly isn't going to get better if they wait, and the deterrent necessary for the smaller steps on that gradient of conflict should be a lot easier to manage. (There's another Japanese angle where wave on wave of stimulus and Abenomics have landed with an ineffective wet thud on their comatose economy, and unfortunately spending on military buildup has a good track record for short-term resuscitation.)
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Apr 6, 2014 21:45
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That's pretty awesome. I wonder how bad things get after the 4 hour mark though.
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Apr 6, 2014 21:52
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Richard Bong posted:That's pretty awesome. I wonder how bad things get after the 4 hour mark though. I'm going to take a wild guess and say it probably has something to do with the increases in tissue fusing to the sponges. Honestly though this poo poo looks awesome and if you have to use it, the last thing on your mind is going to be wondering if he'll be hitting an OR table in under 4 hours. It'll be more like, "HOLY poo poo THAT'S A FUCKTON OF BLOOD! NON-COMPRESSIBLE HEMORRHAGE! NO TOURNIQUET! FFFFUUUUUU-"
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Apr 6, 2014 22:17
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are they using quickclot still or no
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Apr 7, 2014 00:35
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Reverand maynard posted:are they using quickclot still or no They got rid of that years ago.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:39
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