Skua @ Skua @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

To be fair, the fact that so many MBTs are still being lost suggests that they are still useful enough to be used. However, some militaries have been trialled lasers as a sort of lightweight CIWS to protect such vehicles from the likes of incoming missiles, and while that's expensive to add on in the first place the cost per shot is virtually nothing. Turkiye has supposedly already tried one out in live combat, and against UAVs no less

Alright my plans for the evening got cancelled so I decided to have a go at working this out. Methodology, a term I am using somewhat loosely, was to go down wikipedia's list of largest empires, ignore each one that was already completely covered (the four big caliphates and several Chinese dynasties in particular), then take their peak territory from Geacron. Geacron isn't an ideal source here, not least because the only way to "export" from it without paying money is print screen, but it's good enough for these purposes. I also didn't bother filling in the entire map because a couple of places were basically just going to come down to whichever country had them today due to how difficult to conquer they have historically been. Priority in overlaps is given to the larger empire. The result is this: https://i.imgur.com/kLNjpSm.png

On here we have:

• Britain in 1920 (including dominions)
• Mongolia in 1259
• The USSR in 1945
• Russia in 1895... basically only because of Finland and Latvia
• Qing dynasty in 1790
• Spain in 1810
• France in 1920
• The Abbasid caliphate in 750
• The USA in 2022. We could have used 1946 to get part of Germany, but we needed Germany in here anyway since the British and Soviet areas aren't included due to different territorial peaks.
• Brazil in 1889
• Japan in 1942
• Rome in 117
• Portugal in 1894 (mainland Portugal is already covered by Rome, though)
• Italy in 1941 (mainland Italy is, of course, also Rome)
• Belgium in 1939 (Rome has the core again)
• Netherlands in 1938
• Denmark in 1917
• Germany in 1941

This list leaves Western Sahara, Liberia, Sweden, Slovakia, Nepal, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea, and Antarctica for a total of 25 countries (or maybe 27 if you add Norway and Chile for maximum Antarctic coverage. I suppose you could also argue that the Treaty of Torsedillas granted half of Antarctica each to Spain and Portugal, not that either ever actually controlled it). Possibly also some islands, especially in the Pacific, but the map isn't in a high enough resolution to tell. The most contested areas are the Levant and Central Asia. Some big empires that aren't on the list include every Persian empire, the Ottomans, and Alexander's empire.

I'm sure it is, but Zelenskyy is an adult and capable of making his own decisions either way and I don't see what leverage the US could possibly have to force him to keep fighting. What are they going to do if he makes peace, stop giving Ukraine weapons for the war they aren't fighting any more? Even if the US deposed him, Zelenskyy has said openly that he doesn't want to run the country after the war. Can't say I blame him, I'd want a holiday too.

Regardless, none of this changes the fact that if you had read more than the headline, you wouldn't have said "per the article", would you?

I'm not sure this holds. To me that very delay is the valuable point of negotiation I'm talking about; this war is also costly in lives and materiel for Russia. Being able to eventually outlast Ukraine on that front doesn't negate that. But I think that's getting towards too subjective a point for us to find common ground on.

Read the fucking article. The US response was "it's not our choice to make"

I don't understand your reasoning behind:

Your leverage point is moot in my opinion.

If arming Ukraine does not substantially impact Ukraine's ability to fight, how does it prolong the war? In your assessment, Ukraine would be forced to make peace at the same point either way. Could you expand on that?

• 1: Enough that there aren't mass desertions at the front lines.
• 2a: Continuing to fight typically has 2:1 support in what polling I have seen. My country's governnment is absolute dogshit, but if Russia invaded my country you're damn fucking right I'd want to fight them about it even with our shit government.
• 2b: Your article assumes a US coup, it does not show that there was a US coup. It is not weird that the American embassy wanted to negotiate with potential new leaders, doing so does not mean they masterminded a coup, and Zelenskyy was never even mentioned in the Nuland-Pyatt call. There have been two elections since then. It is also not difficult to believe that the protests against Yanukovych were legitimate considering his massive unilateral lurch in policy just beforehand.
• 2c: Absolutely shocking to suspend pro-Russia parties while literally being invaded by Russia. It should be noted that the incumbent party has a majority either way and suspending parties did not grant them any power they didn't already have. Further, the parties suspended represent a minority of the opposition.
• 2d: Sorry to tell you this but fighting a war is actually quite expensive. Is this approach the best one? I have no idea. It hardly seems relevant to what your second point started as. If you'd rather Ukraine didn't do this, it's going to need alternative financing, which means more support from its backers, not less.
• 2e: I do think that it should just be gifted, and some of it is. If your preference is that they get nothing at all then Ukraine could equally just refuse the lend-lease. Again, the better solution here is more support, not less.
• 2f: You know Ukraine was a capitalist country before this war started, right? But once again, if you don't want this to happen, Ukraine needs more unconditional support, not less.
• 3: How much say do you think the US has? This article is literally about Russia trying to get the US to decide on Ukraine's behalf and the US saying "that's not our choice". What is the US going to do if Ukraine decides to stop fighting? Stop supplying arms that the Ukrainians don't need anyway if they're at peace? The thing that I assume you want the US to do anyway, given the comment you're responding to?

I don't want to make Ukrainians do anything. If they choose to keep fighting, they should be enabled to do so. If they choose to make peace, great, but they should be armed sufficiently that they can actually negotiate instead of just capitulate. Either way they need to be armed, because if they don't have the capacity to make the status quo costly then they have no leverage. There is no negotiation if we neuter Ukraine beforehand, there are only Russian demands.

Also, most of the aid is not weapons. A lot of it is, but more of it is housing Ukrainian refugees and funding the Ukrainian govenment to keep the basics of civil services going.

Please, nobody look at my combined hours played on those games

I feel like overlaps should be allowed otherwise certain regions (Iraq and its surroundings come to mind) will make it impossible

I kinda want to see what the fewest countries you could cover the whole world with is if you took everything at its historical peak territory. So like post-WW1 British empire, Mongol empire just before Chinggis died, Umayyad caliphate when it stretched from Iran to Spain, Roman Empire under Trajan etc etc. How many do we need to fill in the whole map? And what's the smallest country that we need in order to do so?

because of the sanctions from the countries previously known as first world, their only trade partners are each other.

This isn't even close to being true. Germany and Australia alone each account for more of China's trade than Russia does. Trade between China and the EU or US dwarfs trade with Russia. Not to mention all the nearby large economies like Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

If it comes down to nothing but money, China will never throw in with Russia because it makes enormously more with North America and Europe. There's a clear incentive to play both sides of course, but if forced to choose then there's only one obvious answer in financial terms.

Every single military in the world will be watching the usage of all sorts of drones in this conflict. Even if you're America or China you need to learn how to defeat them cost-effectively

I'm aware of the history, I just don't think it's a good description of the situation today. "Second World" is a term from when Russia was also calling itself communist and operating on a more similar economic system to China, even if tensions over the specifics and influence led to the Sino-Soviet split. It's not particularly applicable in that sense to modern Russia, which has gone through some changes since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the wiki article even points this out.

Russia and China don't really share much ideologically anyway, do they? They're allies of convenience to one another, and I think "allies" is putting it a bit too strongly anyway given that China doesn't seem to be throwing any material support Russia's way

What?

If you like hiking, Walk Highlands is a stellar resource. Pick a region, sort by difficulty, get a step-by-step guide with photos and a map. Don't push your limits unless you're very experienced; our hills aren't big, but the weather can turn fast and in some regions (especially Skye, which is popular with tourists) the ground can be treacherous.

Edinburgh is a great city with a lot of history and fantastic architecture. Glasgow is the better base for trips into the Highlands and has more modern artistic stuff going on. If you're looking at Skye, you may want to consider Lewis & Harris instead, as it's a similar experience with far fewer people.

If you're near the Fife area, the boat trip out to the Isle of May is a great day out. Short ride from Anstruther to an island that is a seabird reserve these days, puffins and cormorants everywhere. Also get a fish & chips in Anstruther on the way back, it's some of the best going.

Depending on when you're going, the crannog centre by Loch Tay is worth a trip. They're currently rebuilding after a fire destroyed the original. It was/will be a reconstruction of a type of iron age home built over the water of the loch. If you're going up that way already, also stop by Iain Burnett's and get a chocolate tasting flight; he sells chocolate to the likes of the royals and I can believe it with how it tastes. The whole Loch Tay area has some fantastic hill climbs too. I did Ben Lawers last autumn, had a lovely day out.

Nobody expects that they actually will do so willingly. Just that Russia should because, y'know, starting wars to annex territory is not something most people like. That's why Ukraine should be armed until it can make Russia leave.

That said, Russia would absolutely benefit from a negotiated settlement right now. This war is taking a lot of Russian lives and resources, so if it can persuade either Ukraine to agree to enough concessions or Ukraine's backers to stop backing it, Russia could benefit enormously. Even if Russia actually manages to completely overrun Ukraine in the future, actually having to fight to the end will be an extremely costly ordeal.

The article you posted: "The Americans refuse to talk unless the Ukrainians are also invited"

You, for some reason: "Why is America deciding for Ukraine?"

an Idaho