Kiev Burning

[Cerebus]

No getting sick till this crisis is over, Cerebus!!!

Too late.

Loved the breakdown of the tanks, but need to know how many Bothans died to bring us the info, and where is the exhaust port that is vuleranuble to proton torpedoes.

No Bothans died, the only thing that has died is my productivity trying to follow all this. Do me a favor and upvote anything that is interesting. That way I can only spend time on what is interesting to people.

Do the Ukrainans have any A-10's or what are the closest ones should the immediate need arise? How do the Cobra and Apache compare to the Russian attack choppers?

Only the US has active A10s in service. The UK did have some but they retired them over a decade ago. The Ukrainians have no chance against what the Russians can bring to bear. Their best bet would be to start dispersing weapons now and try to organize an insurgency.

Ok, Todays late night CWT:TR-MAD update:

More Russian troops on the move, here are 25 Hinds sitting in a field near Belograd, about 40 km from the border.

Yesterday I was guessing the 19th MRD was on the move. Today there are reports it was the 2nd Guards MRD. Bad news for everyone in front of them, they are one of the most highly decorated units in Russia.

Also five battalions from the 76th/106th airborne assault divisions.

Long story short, it takes a lot of money and effort to move around all these units for nothing.

[Army of Dad]

Only the US has active A10s in service. The UK did have some but they retired them over a decade ago. The Ukrainians have no chance against what the Russians can bring to bear. Their best bet would be to start dispersing weapons now and try to organize an insurgency.

Unkraine already knows how that will go (and Poland, the Baltic states, Hungary, etcetera...)

Their only chance is that we and Western Europe nut up and tell Putin it means war (economic or shooting), a war we aim to win and one he will lose. Ukraine really f-Ed when they turned down NATO membership and when they gave up their nukes. Either would probably have prevented the current crisis, but what's done is done.

[Cerebus]

If you're wondering what ground forces the US still has in euro, one stryker brigade and one airborne brigade. The last two units with some armor attachments, the 170th and 172nd Mechanized Infantry Brigades have just recently been deactivated and sent home.

[Cerebus]

Germany (well, the western half) used to keep 12 armored/mechanized divisions. Now they have trouble maintaining one.

REFORGER was a great program, too bad nothing like it exists now.

[Cerebus]

US DOD: Russia Reinforcing Units on Border with Ukraine

“I would tell you that the staff here in the Pentagon, both the civilian and uniformed, are constantly looking at other ways that … we can further reassure our allies and partners in Europe to potentially look at either adding to or reinforcing existing operations or exercises or even adding on additional opportunities,” Kirby said. “We’re looking at that very closely right now.”

I've seen estimates of 80k troops on the borders now. If that is true, the Russians have moved 50k troops to the area in two days.

[Rudy]

What exactly are our ready elements of armor, fixed wing and attack helicopter aircraft, artillery, manpower, and naval capabilities in the region? What worries me is that we are not at the ready, and Putin knows it.

[UNT90]

What exactly are our ready elements of armor, fixed wing and attack helicopter aircraft, artillery, manpower, and naval capabilities in the region? What worries me is that we are not at the ready, and Putin knows it.

Putin knows that we not only don't have the might, but we don't have the will to do what it takes to make this very uncomfortable for Russia. This was only re-inforced with the weak sanction response to the Crimean invasion.

He also knows that he has a window if opportunity due to the upcoming election cycle. Putin knows how overly important elections are to Pres. Obama. I mean, Pres. Obama told him directly.

Don't underrate this aspect of the crisis. Military assists can be moved (hell, most times even built) far quicker than a country's will can be changed.

[DeepGreen]

In reference to the A10(Warthog) tank buster, remember we are not going to produce them anymore.

[Mean Green 93-98]

US DOD: Russia Reinforcing Units on Border with Ukraine

I've seen estimates of 80k troops on the borders now. If that is true, the Russians have moved 50k troops to the area in two days.

They're saying 100k now. http://news.yahoo.com/ukraine-claims-100-000-russian-troops-near-border-151112283.html

[Mean Green 93-98]

Something else to note from the above article, that I don't recall being previously mentioned:

Obama has ruled out military action in Ukraine, which is not a member of the NATO alliance.

[Cerebus]

In reference to the A10(Warthog) tank buster, remember we are not going to produce them anymore.

There hasn't been one made since 1984. The new development is the Air Force wants to phase them out. I could go on a 5000 word rant about how the Air Force is too focused on flying air superiority jets and would love to abandon every other mission, the ones that are incredibly useful to the other branches as well, but I won't. I'll just say it's a bad idea.

Not only is the A10 wonderful at it intended purpose, flying around GAU-8 so it can pokes holes in armor, but it is probably the best long loiter time CAS airframe in the world.

[Army of Dad]

There hasn't been one made since 1984. The new development is the Air Force wants to phase them out. I could go on a 5000 word rant about how the Air Force is too focused on flying air superiority jets and would love to abandon every other mission, the ones that are incredibly useful to the other branches as well, but I won't. I'll just say it's a bad idea.

Not only is the A10 wonderful at it intended purpose, flying around GAU-8 so it can pokes holes in armor, but it is probably the best long loiter time CAS airframe in the world.

The boys in powder blue never really wanted the Warthog, they just wanted to make sure the Army never got back into the fixed wing aircraft business.

[Cerebus]

What exactly are our ready elements of armor, fixed wing and attack helicopter aircraft, artillery, manpower, and naval capabilities in the region? What worries me is that we are not at the ready, and Putin knows it.

What really matters is we have no sizeable armor assets on the entire continent. The AWACs and F16s in the Baltics + the Bush Carrier Strike Force might actually be able to claim air superiority over what Russia can roll out, at least for a while. However it doesn't matter because we don't have the manpower to stop all that armor.

Note: I'm talking about in NATO countries. We won't roll out for Ukraine.

Military assists can be moved (hell, most times even built) far quicker than a country's will can be changed.

Can it? Sealift Command only has about 8 high speed ro-ro ships.

They could probably get a heavy division into Europe within a week, IF:

• Those units were mobilized, provisioned, moved to port and ready to load.
• There was some place to land them.

Those are pretty big IFs. Don't down play the second one. The JCOS wanted to talk to Germany about restarting a REFORGER type of program after the Georgia invasion. Germany said no, no one wanted to pay for it, and their green party was afraid of the environmental impact of the exercises.

If you think about it, it probably is better for the German environment if a lot of armor rolls in from the east ONCE, as opposed to having a bunch of it roll in from the west every year. Might not be better for the actual Germans...

Something people are overlooking is the entire military, even armor units, have just spent over a decade being focuses on COIN. Training isn't focused on conventional warfare.

It's apparent Putin can make Ukraine into "the Ukraine" any time he wants. What the US needs to do militarily is lead a euro/NATO coalition to move forces into the NATO countries that border Russia. Return heavy armor to Europe. Start moving training back to conventional warfare. Restart a REFORGER type program.

Economically the US needs to underwrite the now much higher cost of gas for Ukraine. Push for development (and offer incentives to American companies) to bring O&G production in the EU online. The resources are there, the environmentalists of those countries have wanted to believe they don't need to produce in their own countries and can rely on a new friendly Russia to supply them.

All of the above will be tough to do, but you know what would make it easier? Russian tanks in Kiev.

[Cerebus]

Fine. I am finally going to do it. I am going to rewrite the massive NATO post that was accidentally deleted. I'll just trim it way down. Everyone needs an editor right?

This installment of CWT:TR-MAD is titled NATO: Not (just) Another Treaty Organization!

I'll start this off with a version of a graphic you have probably seen a million times. Top military budgets in 2012:

This usually causes someone to say something along the lines of "we spend too much on the military, let's cut the budget and use the money on pottery classes for the homeless." What most people don't realize is WHY we spend so much money on defense. It's because of NATO. Long story short, NATO is a system that exchanges security for influence. The US puts in a ton of money, and gets a lot of influence over the other NATO countries, who get security in exchange.

You know what is sexy? Fighter jets! Everyone in NATO has some. They are pretty cool. You know what isn't sexy, but is just as expensive? Logistics (air/sea lift) and infrastructure (AWACS/Satellites). You know what isn't sexy, but is INCREDIBLY more expensive? Force projection (Carriers/Amphibious Assault Ships). Who has those expensive but not sexy components that allow NATO to project force and sustain it? The US. Oh and France, really.

Most people don't know France is a political, but not military, member of NATO. France pulled out it's forces, and kicked out NATO forces under de Gaulle. This lead to an all time great line, when de Gaulle ordered all US soldiers to leave, Dean Rush asked him if that included the war dead in France's national cemeteries.

So really. Only the US and France, and France at a much lower level, have the ability to unilaterally project force over the entire globe. Look at a list of wars since WWII. Remove civil wars, and those between close neighbors, what you have left is:

• France, First Indochina War
• US (with NATO wrappings), Korean War
• France, Algerian War
• US, Vietnam War
• US (with UN wrappings), Persian Gulf War
• US (with coalition wrappings), Iraq/Afghanistan
• France, Mali/CAR

I'll leave out minor conflicts like the Falklands or the US in Panama or the Dominica Republic. Before anyone brings up the Soviets in Afghanistan, the USSR shared a border with them.

So yes, the US does take on huge costs. Remember we have a huge economy. Our defenses spending is about 4.4% of GDP coincidentally, the same as the Russian Federation. Because we take on so much of the infrastructure cost that means that other large economies like the UK and Germany get to spend less, 2.5% and 1.4% respectively. In exchange, we get huge economic and political influence over them. We also get to decide when and where force is used by NATO.

Do you remember how members of NATO wanted to get involved in Libya, and how the US didn't? Do you remember how NATO pleaded and pleaded until the US did give some support. Why? Because without the US infrastructure and logistics, those other countries couldn't even do something as relatively simple as enforce a no fly zone.

So now we come down to why NATO is vital, and why everyone in NATO would have to defend a NATO member. It's easy to see why the US would, it enjoys enormous benefits, in exchange for money, which is something we can afford to do. The other large countries need it because they now rely on the savings. How the hell would Germany scrape 4% of its GDP into defense when its already used for other programs? That what was de Gaulle was worried about, French dependence on NATO at a time when the US and UK shouldered most of the costs. He knew their influence would only grow as politicians under him decided to use that money for other things. And of course the small economies, like Latvia and Poland, know they can't ever compete with Russia if they had to defend themselves.

So for those reasons I believe a Russian attack on NATO would lead to an all out shooting war, God forbid that. I also think Putin knows this. He isn't an idiot. He is just trying to build up his own Warsaw Pact. If they don't want to come under Russian domination voluntarily, well they didn't under the original Warsaw Pact either. He is now hemmed in by the fact that so many of those former members are now in NATO, where Ukraine should have placed themselves if they had ever bothered to learn a little of their own history.

[UNT Five&Dime]

Best. PC. Game. Ever.

[UNT90]

Something else to note from the above article, that I don't recall being previously mentioned:

Jeez. Why would you publicize what you AREN'T willing to do.

Putin will take Ukraine in short order.

[Cerebus]

BBC News- Vladimir Putin: The rebuilding of ‘Soviet’ Russia

Born in Leningrad in 1952, Putin came of age in the Soviet Union's golden years, the period after the USSR's astonishing triumph in World War Two. Sputnik, the hydrogen bomb, Laika the dog and Yuri Gagarin all bore witness to Soviet ingenuity. The crushing of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 bore witness to Soviet resolve. Soviet citizens were enjoying a time of peace and prosperity. Life was stable. People got paid. The world respected them. Everyone knew their place.

When Putin spoke to the Duma, his homeland was a different, and less respected place. He spoke the language of a man who yearned for the lost certainties, who longed for a time when Moscow was to be reckoned with. He did not say it explicitly, but he was clearly stung by Russia's failure to stop Nato driving the forces of its ally, Serbia, out of Kosovo just months previously.

---
"Russia is not between Europe and Asia. Europe and Asia are to the left and right of Russia. We are not a bridge between them but a separate civilisational space, where Russia unites the civilisational communities of East and West,"
---
"We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, conducted in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position," said Putin in his speech last week announcing the annexation of Crimea, a speech that repeated all his points from 1999, but with 15 years worth of additional resentment.

"If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
---
"Putin has really painted himself into a corner by destroying every independent source of power in Russia. He now has only the bureaucracy to rely on, and must keep increasing its funding to keep ensuring its loyalty," says Ben Judah, the British author of Fragile Empire, a study of Putin's Russia.

"Eventually, the money is going to run out, and then he will find himself in the same position Soviet leaders were in by the late 1980s, forced to confront political and economic crises, while trying to hold the country together. He looks strong now, but his Kremlin is built on the one thing in Russia doesn't control: the price of oil."
---
"He does not understand that the collapse of the Soviet system was predetermined, therefore he believes his mission is to restore the Soviet system as soon as possible," he says.

Very good article, I recommend a read.

[Cerebus]

Wait, wait. Nothing to worry about, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement statement saying there is no buildup of Russian military in Ukraine.


Comment by Russian MFA Spokesman A.K.Lukashevicha in connection with allegations of "concentration" of the Russian armed forces in the border regions of Ukraine

In connection with the allegations in the media replicable supply of some politicians in the U.S. and other NATO countries, about the alleged "threatening" the deployment of units and formations of the Russian armed forces on the border with Ukraine should be noted.

In practice, the relationship of OSCE participating States (and all NATO countries, including the U.S., are included in this structure) is fulfilled and completely reliable methods "to get pain medication" in the form of ground and aerial inspections under the Vienna Document 2011, as well as observation flights in accordance with the Open Skies Treaty.

[Cerebus]

Probing air defense and reaction times?

USAF F-15's on Baltic Air Policing QRA scrambled four Russian #Airforce Su-24's and one An-26 over Baltic Sea on Friday via @Latvijas_armija

— Missilito (@Missilito)

March 28, 2014

And confirmed by Latvian Ministry of Defense:

Šodien 2 patruļlidm. F-15 virs Baltijas jūras neitr. ūdeņiem pie LV terit. ūdeņu ārējās robež. identificēja 4 RU mil. lidmaš. Su-24, 1 An-26

— NBS (@Latvijas_armija)

March 28, 2014

Today patruļlidm 2. F-15 over the Baltic Sea neutral. waters to EN well-organized. sea external borders. identified RU 4 mil. Flight. Su-24, An-1 26

Edited March 28, 2014 by Cerebus

[Cerebus]

Russian media reporting movement of 9K720 Iskander missles.

[Cerebus]

UNGA Vote on Crimean ‘Referendum’ Shows New Divisions in the World

The United Nations General Assembly yesterday approved a resolution declaring the Moscow-organized “referendum” in Crimea illegal. The UN vote, of course, has no legal force, although it does highlight the emergence of new divisions in the international community, divisions that will certainly outlast the current crisis.

Of the many interesting aspects of this vote, two are immediately striking. On the one hand, the former Soviet space is deeply divided, with many of the countries in it are at least diplomatically unwilling to support Moscow against the United States and the majority of the international community, choosing to abstain or not participate at all.

And on the other, Russia has made a real beachhead in Latin America. In addition to Cuba which has been in Moscow’s camp since the 1960s, the Russian position was backed by Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, a pointed reminder of the decline in American influence in that part of the world.

[Cerebus]

Strange APC's passing Novozybkov station, Bryansk Region [52°31′22″ N 31°56′49″E] Loudspeakers? Riot Control? Psyops? pic.twitter.com/WYzA0MURAh

— Missilito (@Missilito)

March 28, 2014

Those look like BMP-2s to me:



The Soviets/Russians made these by the thousands. They lost about 2k of them in Afghanistan alone. Have at least 10,000 of them between active duty and reserve units. Have given thousands of them to Russian friendly states.

Seen recently used by Russian forces in South Ossetia, they are with every Motorized Rifle Division and used by a ton of other units also.


ETA: That vehicle in the middle looks like the obsolete 9K31 air defense unit, but with the middle pod no longer supports a SAM pod. It does look like maybe a loudspeaker was attached? I have no idea? Can anybody add anything?

ETA2: Middle vehicle is a ZS-82 "propaganda and agitation vehicle", basically a BRDM-2 with a loudspeaker replacing the mounted machine guns. Here is one the Soviets used in Afghanistan:



ETA3: More info, looks like they can be heard about 6 KM away. We need to get one to take down to Austin and blast the fight song next year. Edited March 28, 2014 by Cerebus

[Rudy]

That is definitely a loudspeaker. They have to use propaganda whenever possible.

#amirite?

[Cerebus]

Russians for 10 days restored military airfield on the border with Ukraine: now it can take large aircraft

Russians for 10 days restored military airfield in Klimovo Bryansk region (10 km from the Ukrainian border), which was actually destroyed in 2011 year.

This was announced by Assistant Chief Chernigov frontier UASBGS Alexander Dudka.

Currently, according to UASBGS in Klimovsk area Bryansk area centered about 100 tanks, 80 armored personnel carriers and BRDM, radars, other equipment. Sources "Duma" argue that the battalion tactical group one of the regiments of the 4th Guards Tank Division Kantemirovsky.

You don't move an elite unit for exercise. They will be in Eastern Ukraine soon.

[UNT90]

Russians for 10 days restored military airfield on the border with Ukraine: now it can take large aircraft

You don't move an elite unit for exercise. They will be in Eastern Ukraine soon.

I would bet they only stop temporarily at Eastern Ukraine, if the stop at all. Russia will have all of Ukraine before summer.