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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31292 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Yes they are. They fund everything, they get the decisions.

  • -18

They fund everything

No, they do not. Vast majority of funds is provided by Ukraine and Russia.

Western help is crucial, but it is only part. Ukraine provides manpower, Ukraine and Russia provided vast part of heavy weaponry.

People were excited about Javelins but Ukrainian Stugnas were also heavily used. Nonsexy artillery has taken down plenty of tanks. And so on.

Ukraine’s meager supplies are nothing without Western intelligence. Everything of significance we fund

Again, you are highly misinformed.

Ukraine had quite strong army. Artillery (except ultra-long-range), tanks, standard issue weaponry, planes, drones are their own supply. Also, other categories - it is not like Javelin is the only AT weapon.

Who funded it? You are misinformed.

Soviet Union (including Ukrainian people), Ukraine (maintenance, refurbishment) for old stock.

Ukraine for TB2, Neptune, Stugna and similar.

They don’t get to just stop funding everything. Assume that pursuing the war is in US/NATO interest. Suppose they make a decision, and Zelensky (or whoever is also taking part on Ukrainian side) disagrees. They cannot just withdraw their funds and their support: this would damage Ukrainian’s strategic position, and reduce the chances of successful military outcomes. It would be cutting their noses to spite their faces.

This does not mean that they have no say in what Ukraine does. They do, but so do the Ukrainian rulers.

When Zelensky disagrees, Zelensky is out.

  • -10

That sounds like a testable hypothesis. Has Zelensky disagreed with the NATO line before?

Yes, multiple times.

"Close the sky", requests for jet fighters, tanks, more aggressive sanctions, long range missiles.

Ukraine also has made some aggressive moves at least not officially stamped by NATO like attacking targets within Russia itself.

Not on anything of significance, to my knowledge. The Ukrainian military command controls the guys with guns and is in direct communication with NATO at all times. If Zelensky decides he now wants to surrender, do you really think his NATO handlers would let him, or that the guys controlling the army will simply obey? The military has previously made decisions without his input, let alone consent

Not on anything of significance, to my knowledge.

Then you are not knowledgeable on this topic.

I think "significance" is doing all the work in that sentence. Anything they've disagreed cannot be of sufficient significance for NATO to stop supporting him, because NATO is still supporting him. QED

I recall a decent number of takes at different moments like "Wow, Zelensky is really going hard on criticizing NATO for not doing enough, they're gonna get sick of him any minute now and cut him off." And that hasn't happened, but to be fair there's probably a good amount of backchannel communication, posturing, and drafting off each other going on here. Z is probably happy to do Biden a solid by "forcing" him to agree to something, Biden is happy to let Z posture for the domestic audience even though Z knows he isn't getting F16s this year.

It started from

When Zelensky disagrees, Zelensky is out.

Zelensky asked for WW III (AKA "close the sky" AKA "no fly zone" AKA "NATO shots down Russian planes, bombs airports and Russia and runs SEAD/DEAD over Belarus and Russia").

I think that it is sufficient for rejection of "When Zelensky disagrees, Zelensky is out." and "Not on anything of significance"

Nice source!

Avoid low-effort sarcasm.

Zelensky demanded a no-fly-zone many times, and NATO clarified it won't do that, or confront the Russians directly with official NATO troops in other ways.

Indeed. The United States government provided so much funding for the Afghan national army that they were able to just tell the Afghans to stand and fight. And, by god, isn't that exactly what we saw?

Correct. The US government told the Afghanis when and where to fight. They made all of the decisions. But the Taliban were superior to the Afghani soldiers and without continual funding the Afghan army fell apart. I hope did not think the Afghans made the decisions on how to fight.

You misunderstood the sarcasm. All the money in the world doesn't mean people will listen to your orders. This is leaving aside the conspiratorial claim that Nato is giving marching orders to Ukrainians.

I didn’t misunderstand the sarcasm. I ignored your annoying rule-breaking sarcasm and disproved your intended argument.

All the money in the world doesn't mean people will listen to your orders

This has nothing whatsoever to do with whether NATO would oust Zelensky, whether NATO is calling the shots (literally speaking with satellites), whether NATO has influenced the picking of Ukraine’s leaders and military, or anything else. No one is arguing that the Ukrainian military does not want to fight Russia, we’re arguing whether Zelensky has more authority than the enmeshed NATO command in Ukraine’s military. That, plus shooting those who refuse orders and drafting men who don’t want to fight, gets soldiers to fight.

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