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Subject: The Incredible Shrinking Russian Army
SYSOP    9/29/2014 5:12:20 AM
 
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bob sykes       9/29/2014 9:10:18 AM
This weakness, of course, presents the West with a real problem: any war with Russia will of necessity be nuclear from the git-go, and Russia has very many tactical nukes. This makes the US/EU/NATO created crisis in Ukraine especially dangerous because Ukraine is a historic part of the Russian heartland and an extremely sensitive issue for Russia.
 
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trenchsol       9/29/2014 10:39:06 AM
I am trying to figure out who is fighting in Ukraine on Russian side. Professionals, conscripts, volunteers, or volunteering conscripts ? I have found an information that in Afghanistan, in 80's, only volunteering conscripts have been sent.
 
I suppose they still don't force 'ordinary' conscripts to fight in Ukraine ?
 
 
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esmoore5       9/29/2014 12:00:25 PM

This weakness, of course, presents the West with a real problem: any war with Russia will of necessity be nuclear from the git-go, and Russia has very many tactical nukes. This makes the US/EU/NATO created crisis in Ukraine especially dangerous because Ukraine is a historic part of the Russian heartland and an extremely sensitive issue for Russia.


Poland needs nuclear arms to ward off Russia: Walesa:
 
"Polish anti-communist icon Lech Walesa said Poland should procure
nuclear weapons as a  safeguard against http://www.defencetalk.com/tag/russia/">Russia,  which it blames for
stoking the crisis in neighboring Ukraine.
See:
 
 
I wonder how many other nations are going to push for nukes as a result
of the Ukraine mess?
 
 
 
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WarNerd       9/29/2014 12:47:50 PM
I wonder how many other nations are going to push for nukes as a result
of the Ukraine mess?
Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Norway, and Finland. Basically anyone sharing a border with Russia. Turkey probably won’t demand nukes because of the strength of its conventional forces, unless Iran produces a bomb.
 
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HR    War Nerd   9/29/2014 1:21:29 PM
Poland has circumstances that are some-what similar to those of Ukraine and Crimea in the sense that at one time the Poles where partitioned with a good size piece of the country going to the czar. So with that the new "czar" might invent a way to make some convoluted claim for once Russian territory.
 
Besides that the geography of Poland is not militarily merciful. It is a difficult country to defend.
 
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keffler25       9/29/2014 2:54:03 PM
Once again a poster's historic ignorance squawks. Poland and  Germany have similar histories with regard to Russia and the Ukraine. In the past, both have invaded and clobbered Russia*1 ---> through Belorus on the way to the Ukraine.    
 
Ukraine in addition to being a vast shale oil and natural; gas stockpile is the BREADBASKET of Europe once you get some decent farmers in there.
 
*1 So has Sweden. The Mongols came from the east and the Turks kind of sashayed up from the South.
 
Who feels threatened depends on whose history and whose ox is gored. If you don't know this stuff, its easy to get it disastrously wrong. Look how Kruschev miscalculated with Cuba and the US. He should never have stuck his nose in. He prolonged a cold war by four decades and almost started a nuclear war because he forgot the Spanish American War and PEARL HARBOR.  
 
Poland has circumstances that are some-what similar to those of Ukraine and Crimea in the sense that at one time the Poles where partitioned with a good size piece of the country going to the czar. So with that the new "czar" might invent a way to make some convoluted claim for once Russian territory.

 

Besides that the geography of Poland is not militarily merciful. It is a difficult country to defend.

 
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......!       9/29/2014 3:40:11 PM
Kruschev won - the US missiles were quietly removed fron Turkey.
 
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esmoore5       9/29/2014 4:47:35 PM
 Turkey probably won’t demand nukes because of the strength of its conventional forces, unless Iran produces a bomb.



 If Iran gets the bomb, expect Saudi Arabia to follow suit:
 
 
Quote:
 
"Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a
conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not
wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to
Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.""
 
 
 
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joe6pack    Bob   9/29/2014 7:40:31 PM
" any war with Russia will of necessity be nuclear from the git-go, and Russia has very many tactical nukes"
 
While I can't say the Russian army looks very impressive at the moment..  I'm not sure they would be the ones reduced to looking at tactical nukes.. (ok overstating things...)
 
But take a look at the (a)pathetic state NATO is in..
American forces in Europe all but gone, armor is all gone.
There are mid sized U.S. cities with more police than the Heer has infantry.
The UK land forces (and forces overall) have been greatly reduced..
Not sure how the French are making out..
But defense spending among NATO members is generally below 2% of GDP.
 
The "rapid reaction" force scraped together to confront Russian aggression.. is something like 5,000 (more or less light infantry).
 
NATO war stocks, such as there were.. could barely maintain a bombing campaign over Libya..
 
Color me.. not impressed..  I suspect this one of the reasons why Putin feels confident enough to pull the shenanigans he's currently embroiled in.. 
 
The only Europeans that seem to have seriously undertaken an effort to improve their defense.. are the Poles. I'm pretty sure they aren't counting on NATO help.. consider past experience. 
 
 
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keffler25       9/29/2014 7:44:11 PM
Russia LOST. The US IRBMS were already scheduled for removal as soon as Minuteman came online. There was no point maintaining obsolete missiles that would never survive to fuel to launch on their exposed pads once Russian bombers crossed the Black Sea. You need to remember how vulnerable those early liquid fueled rockets were as a second strike weapon. And as a first strike weapon? Do you seriously think any sane American in the action chain would allow a failed PT boat commander to dare such insanity?
 
With Russian missiles in the equivalent position, the obverse could not be assumed to be true for the Russian actors. Stalin was still a recent American memory and it was well known ansd understood that Kruschev was a Stalin type THUG, with that kind of egomania and inflated opinion of himself that Stalin seems to have shared.
 
So to remove the missiles from Cuba was an American victory because it in effect affirmed the true crude state of military world affairs as it then existed, that if the Russians were to try, they would hurt the Americans grievously, but then Russia as a nation would die. The old saying...now (but new then) was politicians on both sides might lie but the American missiles will fly, and the Russian missiles... won't was quite true.
 
And you better believe that both sides knew it.  
Kruschev won - the US missiles were quietly removed fron Turkey.

 
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