We can't win

[Scooter]

I lack analytical ability and objectivity.

FTFY, since this:

would have been way too subtle for you.

[rubato]

"...

Russia has a long history of wars. For the last 300 years, I agree that Russia has not been defeated militarily. ... "
snailgate

Charles the XII of Sweden defeated Frederick the Great (And 100% of his other opponents to that moment)in every battle, except the last one. The Turks serially rode north across the steppe and looted various cities holding portions of Ukraine and modern Russia for different period of time. The British + Ottomans won the Crimean war.

The wikipedia scorecard has them losing 3 wars to the Ottoman empire 1 undecided outcome and the remainder Russian victories.

The Finns won the winter war.

And of course NATO handed the Russians a crushing defeat in the Cold War which Putin is trying to revive.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

The Bolsheviks also agreed to loser peace terms with Germany to get Russia out of The Great War:

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on 3 March 1918. The signatories were Soviet Russia signed by Grigori Yakovlovich Sokolnikov on the one side and the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Empire on the other.

The treaty marked Russia's final withdrawal from World War I as an enemy of her co-signatories, on severe terms. In all, the treaty took away territory that included a quarter of the population and industry of the former Russian Empire [28] and nine-tenths of its coal mines.[29]

Russia renounced all territorial claims in Finland (which it had already acknowledged), Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Belarus, and Ukraine. The territory of the Kingdom of Poland was not mentioned in the treaty, because Russian Poland had been a personal possession of the Tsar, not part of the Empire.

The treaty stated that "Germany and Austria-Hungary intend to determine the future fate of these territories in agreement with their populations." Most of these territories were in effect ceded to Germany, which intended to have them become economic and political dependencies.

More:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk

[rubato]

Above should read Peter the Great not Frederick. Brain fart.

Yrs,
Rubato

[Bicycle Bill]

Taken from theatlantic.com, and originally dated 9/12/18

The headline figures for Russia’s Vostok (or “East”) military exercises, which began yesterday, are dramatic:  300,000 soldiers, 36,000 tanks and other vehicles, 80 ships, and 1,000 aircraft operating across more than half the country.  That’s double the size of the British armed forces.  It’s also twice the size of the last Vostok war games, held back in 2014.  As if that weren’t enough, some 3,200 Chinese troops and 30 aircraft are also involved, along with a small Mongolian force.

Vostok will take the form of a week-long clash between two sides, fought on land, in the air, and in the waters off the Russian Far East.  The drills will include staging parachute jumps, conducting “anti-terrorist operations,” and shooting down cruise missiles.  The exercise will conclude with a review of the forces in the field, a photo opportunity featuring row upon row of tanks, troops, and miscellaneous hardware.  In a way, that’s the whole point.  Vostok is not just a big military-training drill — it’s a massive psychological-warfare operation and a geopolitical gambit, being undertaken by Russia as it regains much of its martial mojo and its ability to mount and coordinate complex operations.

That said, there’s a difference between showing off your hardware and testing your new tactics, and actually going to war.  We shouldn’t assume that Russia actually wants to fight some major conflict.  If nothing else, while Vostok’s scale shows that Moscow has regained the capacity for a continental-scale operation, it could hardly afford to fight one for real.  It would have a hard time mustering this kind of army during wartime, when railway lines and communication hubs would be primary targets.
(......emphasis mine)

Read the rest here.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, liberty.  Turns out the big bad Russian bear you're so concerned about is not some fearsome, raging grizzly but more of an old, fuzzy, patchwork Winnie-the-Pooh.

-"BB"-

[liberty]

Taken from theatlantic.com, and originally dated 9/12/18

The headline figures for Russia’s Vostok (or “East”) military exercises, which began yesterday, are dramatic:  300,000 soldiers, 36,000 tanks and other vehicles, 80 ships, and 1,000 aircraft operating across more than half the country.  That’s double the size of the British armed forces.  It’s also twice the size of the last Vostok war games, held back in 2014.  As if that weren’t enough, some 3,200 Chinese troops and 30 aircraft are also involved, along with a small Mongolian force.

Vostok will take the form of a week-long clash between two sides, fought on land, in the air, and in the waters off the Russian Far East.  The drills will include staging parachute jumps, conducting “anti-terrorist operations,” and shooting down cruise missiles.  The exercise will conclude with a review of the forces in the field, a photo opportunity featuring row upon row of tanks, troops, and miscellaneous hardware.  In a way, that’s the whole point.  Vostok is not just a big military-training drill — it’s a massive psychological-warfare operation and a geopolitical gambit, being undertaken by Russia as it regains much of its martial mojo and its ability to mount and coordinate complex operations.

That said, there’s a difference between showing off your hardware and testing your new tactics, and actually going to war.  We shouldn’t assume that Russia actually wants to fight some major conflict.  If nothing else, while Vostok’s scale shows that Moscow has regained the capacity for a continental-scale operation, it could hardly afford to fight one for real.  It would have a hard time mustering this kind of army during wartime, when railway lines and communication hubs would be primary targets.
(......emphasis mine)

Read the rest here.
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, liberty.  Turns out the big bad Russian bear you're so concerned about is not some fearsome, raging grizzly but more of an old, fuzzy, patchwork Winnie-the-Pooh.

-"BB"-

1939: NAZI Germany has nothing to gain by going to war; there is no need to prepare it will never happen.

[Crackpot]

Prepare? I thought you wanted to capitulate.

[Lord Jim]

1939: NAZI Germany has nothing to gain by going to war; there is no need to prepare it will never happen.

Who was saying that in 1939?

[Joe Guy]

Adolf Hitler?

[wesw]

chamberlain

[Joe Guy]

Wilt?

[Scooter]

Actually even before 1939 Neville Chamberlain had begun putting the U.K. on a war footing. By March the U.K. and France had extended guarantees to Poland in the event of a German invasion. Which of course they followed through with a declaration of war when Germany invaded Poland in September.

[liberty]

1939: NAZI Germany has nothing to gain by going to war; there is no need to prepare it will never happen.

Who was saying that in 1939?

https://visitpearlharbor.org/didnt-amer ... y-join-war

The general public was not ready to join another war, opting for neutrality. A poll taken in 1939, after the outbreak of war, showed 94% as being against going to war. A Lackluster Military. Even if the United States had wanted to enter the war, its military force was simply not ready.

[MajGenl.Meade]

1939: NAZI Germany has nothing to gain by going to war; there is no need to prepare it will never happen.

I don't find that quote anywhere - can you please provide the source for it?

As Scooter pointed out, in early 1939 (post-Munich) Chamberlain and even beforehand Britain was preparing for the unpleasant truth that Hitler was not going to disarm and the commitment was made to Poland after the shameful back-down over Czechoslovakia. He did, of course, continually downplay the risk of war to the British public because he believed that discussion could (and should) always resolve disputes without the horror of war.

Who said this (not Trump obviously because it is both grammatical and coherent):

I tell you that I'm not dictatorial, I'm not intolerant, I'm not overpowering! You're all wrong, wrong, wrong, I tell you! I'm the most relaxed and understanding of people! None of you, I insist, must ever say I'm dictatorial again!

?

[Big RR]

Given the context of this thread, I'd guess either Churchill or Chamberlain.

[wesw]

or roosevelte or stalin....

[Big RR]

No, it sounds more British than American, or Russian.

[rubato]

or roosevelte or stalin....

Roosevelt was already preparing for war by the end of 1939 and had proposed sending planes to England in 1938.and Stalin had a large standing army already. Stalin had signed a pact to carve up Poland together with Hitler so he KNEW Hitler was going to war.

If the quote is true I would suggest Lindbergh who resigned his commission in the Army Air Corps reserve because of his convicted isolationism.


yrs,
rubato

[ex-khobar Andy]

Chamberlain . . . after the shameful back-down over Czechoslovakia.

I have always been inclined to give Chamberlain a pass on the appeasement. He was wrong of course, but the horrors of the great war were very recent - less than 20 years. To give that some context, the Gulf war (Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, Schwarzkopf's Hail Mary, 11 million barrels of oil in the Persian Gulf and on the desert, and all that) was now 27 years ago. Britain had lost a generation and I think that most of us in Chamberlain's shoes might have made the same bargain with the devil.

To cite an example which may be close to your heart, Meade (the original) did not always cover himself with glory and certainly made battlefield decisions which although tactically sound did not necessarily advance the Union's cause. Nevertheless he is rightly seen nowadays as one of the heroes of that cause. In the same way Chamberlain made decisions which may not have been the best but were understandable; and may in fact have been made with a view to buying enough time for the necessary re-armanent. Had Britain gone to war with Germany in 1938 I don't think the result (1-0 to us) would have been the same.

[rubato]

I have always been inclined to give Chamberlain a pass on the appeasement. He was wrong of course, but the horrors of the great war were very recent - less than 20 years. To give that some context, the Gulf war (Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, Schwarzkopf's Hail Mary, 11 million barrels of oil in the Persian Gulf and on the desert, and all that) was now 27 years ago. Britain had lost a generation and I think that most of us in Chamberlain's shoes might have made the same bargain with the devil.

... " .

You can only say it was his failure if he had better choices. And Chamberlain had very few choices. England was poorly prepared for a war in the center of Europe. The moral corruption of the League of Nations had shown it was toothless against even Italy; Italy could have been completely prevented from attacking Ethiopia by shutting the Suez canal ( or an effective oil embargo but it was Roosevelt who failed there he allowed US producers to increase shipments to Italy). Instead they coughed up the secret Hoare-Laval agreement. Hitler knew that the League was gutless.

The point where the UK should have been prepared for war and willing to show some spine against fascism was past by 1936.

yrs,
rubato