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ktrzanx commented on ‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training   ft.com/content/bbce0959-f... · Posted by u/chewz
baybal2 · 3 years ago
The important aspect here is that it previously criticised for shifting resources from a career military.

A 300k active service military would be of course nothing to scoff at, especially with a lot of long range weapons.

But what we see in Ukraine is they had biggest army in Europe, and they also wanted to go mostly professional, but their core force, the most well trained soldier took an enormous hit, and is melting away.

Soldiers whom they spent years preparing are still humans, and are dying to artillery, air strikes, and zerg rushes of Russian "disposables" (draftees, Wanger mercenaries, and LPR/DPR levy.) These highly trained soldiers are not trading their lives meaningfully when they sit in trenches, and can't attack because the frontline is so stretched out, and manpower is drained for menial tasks.

This is all shows that you can't fight something like Russia with professional army only if you are a country of only 44m people.

A degree of differentiation in between career warriors who will spend a decade or more in the military vs. somebody who will go for a 2-3 year contract, and reservists with minimal training is absolutely essential.

Israel maintains a 1 to 3 split in between professional soldiers, and the good part of their reserve (people who regularly train, fit, and had good scores in tests.) The ratio is way bigger on the paper though.

ktrzanx · 3 years ago
It is reasonable to have a draft for self-defense (like Israel).

We now see that Russia has difficulties getting draftees to fight abroad, so it is hard to imagine that Poland is at any particular risk right now.

ktrzanx commented on ‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training   ft.com/content/bbce0959-f... · Posted by u/chewz
ekidd · 3 years ago
Russia's government officials have vaguely threatened nuclear war against multiple European countries this year alone. NATO is standing together for now, but some major political parties in key NATO members have connections to Russia.

Russia also loudly denied any plans to invade Ukraine until they rolled across the border. And they've been repeatedly caught committing barbaric atrocities against civilians in occupied territories.

So if the Poles want to sign up for military training, then more power to them. Being willing to defend your loved ones and your country is a noble endeavor. You don't even need a specific reason. And if the Poles want the ability to defend themselves without being utterly reliant on their NATO allies, that's their right.

ktrzanx · 3 years ago
Who? Kadyrov? He's the attack dog just for show.

Whenever I dug in more deeply, Russia has warned about using nuclear weapons to preserve its own territorial integrity.

One could argue that declaring Donbass Russian is a semantic trick to "justify" using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. But where is the threat against EU countries?

The Russian ambassador to London has just declared that they won't use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (Sky News). Is he lying? Possibly, but that contradicts open threats.

ktrzanx commented on ‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training   ft.com/content/bbce0959-f... · Posted by u/chewz
luckylion · 3 years ago
Sure you can, and they will, once they feel ready for the next war to expand their empire after you've given them Ukraine.

Appeasing expansionist fascists never works. Europeans had started to forget that lesson (Western Europe more so than Eastern Europe, whose memory was much fresher), but they're rapidly relearning it.

ktrzanx · 3 years ago
This is demonstrably wrong: Finland appeased Stalin in the Winter War, gave up small territories and preserved the rest of its territorial integrity until today.

u/ktrzanx

KarmaCake day-2November 6, 2022View Original