looking at the low tech - WWII style - war in Ukraine with a lot of civil population and property being hit, intentionally and unintentionally, i'd take high tech any time over it. For example when a full salvo (16) of unguided missiles (from "Uragan" system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-27_Uragan) with 100Kg cluster warheads rains over the center of large city (Donetsk) ... i wish that US give Ukraine high-precision weapons so those weapons would be used instead.
In an interview one Russian tank gun operator was boasting "we had a good tank - it had night vision"! In 2015! He said 3 tanks out of their team's 12 were such "good" tanks (and it was regular Russian army unit, not a rebel one). Of course no laser guided, drones, or any "total battlefield awareness", etc... Just shoot whatever you see through that night vision (it was their actual order the night Ukraine forces were making their way out of Debaltsevo encirclement through the narrow bottleneck while Russian forces were shooting at them from good positions from both sides)
I'm not convinced that high tech war machinery precludes collateral damage - to use that stomach-churning phrase.
I appreciate your point on one hand - conventional weapons can be inaccurate and that can result in tragic, horrifying mistakes.
But, I'm not aware of any high tech war technology that explicitly tries to prevent risk of injury to non-combatants. The only thing that stops civilians from being fired on is the person on the other end with their finger on the trigger.
For example, in spite of the technology at hand, drone operators have made decisions based on misinformation or misinterpretation - resulting in the horrific murder of civilians.
A weapon is a weapon, and it can be easily used negligently - or malevolently. The Uragan example you mentioned is at least one of these.
> A weapon is a weapon, and it can be easily used
> negligently - or malevolently.
It's plainly obvious that, all other things (like the negligence/malevolence) being equal, some weapons are far more indiscriminate than others.
Something like a guided cruise missile is designed to destroy a single building. There can be operator error, and obviously you could intentionally (malevolently) target a civilian building with one.
But compare that to the technology we had sixty years ago: squadrons of huge bomber planes carrying hundreds of unguided bombs.
One of those things is clearly an order of magnitude less likely to cause unintended collateral damage than the other.
There are certainly downsides to the modern technology. One much-discussed one is that cruise missiles and drones give some countries a god-like ability to reign targeted death on others, without putting their own people at risk. Say what you will about the horrors of WWII bombers dropping bombs on populated cities; at least the countries dropping bombs had some skin in the game.
Good points. I wonder if the two World Wars are outliers though. I don't know if there was anything comparable before them before - there really hasn't been anything since. Of course the ability to rain thousands of tons of bombs on cities in WWII was due to technological advancement at that time. Thank goodness at least that technology has advanced beyond those horrors.
T-14 is still not in the army. Probably not even in the mass production yet. No T-90 has been sent to Ukraine. Modernized versions of T-72 is still in wide service with Russian army. Regular Russian army units (at the scale of several "battalion tactical groups", about 2000-3000 soldiers total) were sent to Ukraine in August 2014 - they stopped very successful Ukraine offensive by encircling significant forces near Illovaysk back then - and in January/February 2015 when they were primary force in encircling the Ukraine's forces near Debaltsevo. Combined battalion group (about 300-500) of platoons of special forces and paratroopers from various Russian units were performing major offensive in Donetsk airport in December.
Officially the soldiers were "on vacation" (just happen to vacation with their guns and tanks in Ukraine). Unfortunately for wounded and killed in the January/February 2015 many of them were really put "on vacation" paperwork-wise and now they or their relatives have troubles trying to get the compensation money.
There are many videos of T72-B3s geolocated in DNR region. This model was never exported outside of Russia. One of videos is by pro-russian UK war tourist Graham W Phillips about fights in Debalceve (after ceasefire was agreed).
I wish the US go home instead of seeding war anywhere they go.
I visited Ukraine last month and one of the best things I saw was that war there was contained and "light" using mostly light weapons.
Russia probably has not the tech the US has, but Europe does, and Europe does not need a heavy nuclear war or loosing their main energy supplier(Russia).
The U.S. invaded The Crimea? Weird. Chechnya, Degestan? The U.S. seeded war in the Balkans? I remember all those U.S. supplied snipers in Savajevo killing civilians in Sniper Alley.. How about all of those American made AK-47s being used across Africa?
I'm not sure how discouraging Russian and Islamic expansionism is somehow 'seeding war.' I don't recall Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait being 'seeded' by the U.S. During the Korean War, it was the Chinese supported North that attacked the South. How about Tibet? Or pretty much every conflict in Africa? This "America as invader" meme has no basis in reality or fact. The U.S. just doesn't sit around throwing darts on maps to pick countries to invade. We could suggest that countries like France in Africa and Indochina, the British with Northern Ireland and the Faulklands, the Germans (twice) in Europe, the Italians in Ethiopia and Libya, the Egyptians in the Six Day war and the Yom Kippir War..
The U.S. has been the belligerents in very few conflicts. We could talk about the Cubans in Grenada, the Soviets in Afghanistan..
The U.S. isn't perfect, but they definitely don't spend their time invading their neighbors because of some ethnic claim or another. The U.S. is involved in many places but there's a big difference between getting involved defensively as opposed to offensive, territorial-grabbing objectives such as seen in the Ukraine and the Caucasus.
By the way, I am not passing judgement on any country; it's just important to maintain perspective based on facts and not some knee-jerk assumption.
Ask Poland and the Baltics if they want the U.S. around. Huge majorities would say yes. Woukd you rather have the US sit in the sidelines while Russia marches unchecked to the German border?
EU won't lose Russia as energy source. Russia would do it already if it could, but half of its budget comes from gas and oil sales (huge majority - to EU).
And EU as a whole gets most of energy from outside Russia. It would hurt Russia a lot more than EU.
And nuclear war is right off.
On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished, or we will get more wars eventually, so Russia brought its own demise on itself, and it drags parts of Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and others with it.
>On the other hand behaving like it's 1939 in modern Europe must be punished,
and that exactly what Russia did when Western Ukraine nationalist forces grabbed the power in Kiev through the military coup and threatened to do to ethnic Russians what the same nationalist forces did to ethnic Poles in Western Ukraine during WWII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Insurgent_Army#Ethnic... . Their WWII leader - Bandera - is openly revered as national hero by the current powers in Kiev.
I happen to be from eastern Poland. I know people that lost family members to Russians in Katyn, to Ukrainians in Wolyn, and to Germans in whole Poland. That is history. I see no connection between W2 and Majdan. But I see connections between 1938 and Crimea.
BTW Bandera had nothing on Stalin when it comes to murdering civilians, and there are 1000s monuments of Stalin in Russia, and your president called the fall of USSR the greatest tragedy of XXth century...
Anyway - this doesn't matter. You lie regarding the nationalist forces (look up the percentage won by right wing parties in elections after Majdan - less than 5% IIRC).
And the threat to ethnic Russians in Ukraine is pure bullshit Russian propaganda. There is not even clear way to tell who is Ukrainian speaking Russian (significant amounts of these live even in Kiev), and who is "persecuted Russian". And telling by the fact that Russian minority in Estonia, Latvia etc complain about persecution too (and EU laws regarding minorities are very strict about such things). I'd take such complains with big grain of salt.
In conclusion - it was invasion and annexion of democratic state by authoritarian neighbor. The excuses are poor. That's why most of civilized world put sanctions on Russia.
Percentage-wise Poland probably got easier than USSR itself during the same period under Stalin. Not that it wasn't a tragedy, just that it wasn't specifically against Poles. It was pretty much the same "upper class cleansing" that happened in USSR - military officers, ministers, government, and other educated or "advanced" in any other way people. Bandera on the other hand was specifically killing Poles.
>You lie regarding the nationalist forces (look up the percentage won by right wing parties in elections after Majdan - less than 5% IIRC).
Yatsenuk's and Poroshenko's parties took around 50% and have full power in the country. It is these forces that direct the "pacifying" operation in the East which in particular results in significant ethnic cleansing of that region.
>And the threat to ethnic Russians in Ukraine is pure bullshit Russian propaganda. There is not even clear way to tell who is Ukrainian speaking Russian (significant amounts of these live even in Kiev), and who is "persecuted Russian".
you just don't know what you're talking about.
>And telling by the fact that Russian minority in Estonia, Latvia etc complain about persecution too (and EU laws regarding minorities are very strict about such things). I'd take such complains with big grain of salt.
Have relatives in Litva. Fully integrated, inter-married, children, etc... If you're relatively young and determined, you can be able to jump through all the hoops... And it wasn't immigration, it is for the people who lived on the territory at the time of the new state formation. You're probably again talking about things you don't know about.
>In conclusion - it was invasion and annexion of democratic state by authoritarian neighbor.
Presidents in democratic state are changed either through elections or impeachment. Taking power in a coup is completely different thing. These new Ukraine powers were stupid to immediately manifest direct and open hostility toward ethnic Russians (first order of business of the new powers - the language law - no practical effect, only huge symbolic gesture) before having built up the military forces. Putin doesn't care about fate of these ethnic Russians of course, it just provided the opening for him, and Crimea more than happily voted for separation (speaking about democracy - Crimea separation was more democratic than the power change in Kiev, so if you think that current regime in Kiev is democratically legitimate than it would be a double standard to not recognize Crimea separation). And as a side effect Ukraine got punished for stupidity of their new regime. Nationalism blinded by hate always gets punished in the end...
And by the way - everybody is ok with Saudis attacking Yemen where the president they liked was ousted... Try Putin actually attack the Ukraine when Yanukovich was ousted... Double standards.
And then he also ordered massacre of prisoners at Katyn. And I don't understand your point about only counting killed Poles against Stalin. He is responsible for millions of deaths, Bandera can't compete.
Not that it matters, you brought up history to political discussion.
Yatseniuk and Poroshenko aren't nazi nor nationalist, and they weren't leaders of Majdan, they were chosen in elections afterwards, after Janukovych lost power after ordering shooting to protesters.
He also illegally changed constitution, and introduced law against protesting, and against independent media. I'd say the only way they could avoid Putin and Lukashenko style authoritarian state was through revolution, and they did OK.
Saudis are irrelevant to the subject, it's natural that people react to bully next door more than to bully on other continent.
You mean a territory that belonged to them only a few decades before? This idea that Russia wants to take back its former USSR territories is a fantasy.
In an interview one Russian tank gun operator was boasting "we had a good tank - it had night vision"! In 2015! He said 3 tanks out of their team's 12 were such "good" tanks (and it was regular Russian army unit, not a rebel one). Of course no laser guided, drones, or any "total battlefield awareness", etc... Just shoot whatever you see through that night vision (it was their actual order the night Ukraine forces were making their way out of Debaltsevo encirclement through the narrow bottleneck while Russian forces were shooting at them from good positions from both sides)