Aw, crap... (AfD beats Merkel in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)

[SHETl]

uhhh that's precicly the cause of AfD's rise....cause she handled it HORRIBLY.

The *cause* of the AfD's success is the lingering, ominipresent climate of economic fear in Germany. Thousands of people who lost their jobs during the 2008 crash were forced to use up their life savings before receiving unemployment benefits, while being told it's their own fault they're out of work, often being sanctioned (and getting scolded at the Jobcenter) for not trying hard enough to get a new job. And the grand coalition keeps tightening the benefit regulations. Sealing off the borders and getting rid of foreign surplus population, as the AfD proposes, are the lowest common denominator solutions to the overbearing sense of scarcity... in one of Europe's wealthiest countries.

[Shofercia]

The Russians have never had any interest in "taking Poland" ever since the Empire fell. All this talk about "Russian aggression" towards Poland is propagandistic nonsense. It was used to justify anticommunism during the Cold War, to justify the expansion of NATO in the 1990s, and is used to justify the overstretch of the EU nowadays. But every single time it has been pure bollocks.

Poland has nothing Russia would even want. And if if wasn't for the Poles pumping their country full of NATO soldiers and a bunch of friggin' missiles aimed at Moscow, there wouldn't even be much of tension between the two countries in the first place.

I don't think Russia is going to invade Poland but Poland has long felt worried and threatened. That's one of the reasons why they wanted to join NATO and elected a nationalist government last year. They've lost their country to imperialism before.

Sure, but what do Polandball's feelings have to do with the AfD?

Well Russia has NEVER taken Poland without German help.



A five second search on Google shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Pol ... E2%80%9367)

"The Russian Civil War was not why Russia lost... Russia lost in part due to over extension caused by the Russian Civil War" - Professor Novus America teaching a class. Have you any idea of the over extension actually caused by the Civil War? Or the strain that it put on the Red Army? Your argument of "but muh distance" does not hold for relatively small countries, such as the Baltics and Poland. They're not big. Oh, and once Russia takes the Baltics, there's the resupply area called Kaliningrad.

Taking Poland refers to conquering it. Not beating it back from Moscow.

Distance and logistics played a critical role in the Polish Soviet war. You clearly do not understand the war if you do not believe that. Sure the civil war weakened logistics further.

Poland also had only just been recreated and had many of the same problems as it was rebuilding its army from almost nothing during the war.

Kaliningrad does not produce large amounts of food, supplies or ammunition. It is an isolated enclave. Those are mostly produced far away from Poland. You have to be able to move the supplies from where they are produced and stored to where they are needed under wartime conditions. This is no easy task.

However the whole point is moot. Russia is not invading Poland and Poland would not be fighting alone anyways.

Yes, logistics played a role. You know what else strained the logistics? The Civil War and being at war since 1914. Yeah, that. The USSR is quite big. Fighting a Civil War in the USSR strains logistics a lot more than fighting in tiny Poland. Oh, and the Baltics are also tiny, so transferring supplies to Kaliningrad, once the Baltics are taken, would be quite easy.

Look at the context. Then look at the war that he's citing. Then look at the context again. He wasn't talking about conquering all of Poland.




Actually it's because Russia's equipment offers more bang for the buck. The reason why military expenditure is high, is because of nukes. A lot had to be restored after the 1990s, and poorly maintained nukes are bad. Georgian T-72s were upgraded, like the T-72SIM. 5,000 reserves is rather hilarious, try again: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -West.html



Russia's military is also a tad more than 200k-300k: http://www.cfr.org/russian-federation/r ... ary/p33758

(Image)

And restoring a T-72 is not that complex. That's one of its benefits.

Georgia had poorly maintained Soviet leftovers and did not represent a credible military.

Way to not read the article.
"It will be distinct from Russia's existing military reserves because the part-time personnel will be paid a monthly sum and train regularly.
Russia already has several million military reservists consisting of ex-servicemen, but they do little training as there are restrictions on how often they can be called up.
Defence Ministry officials have previously said that the new reserve force was envisaged at around 5,000 men to begin with, a small figure in a country with around 750,000 frontline troops."

See, here is the thing. Troops and tanks on paper are not the same as available forces. The "million reservists" are just former soldiers who can be recalled in theory. Most countries like the US do not count them as reservists. Because they are not drilled, equipped or organized. Reservists who are not drilled and trained regularly are not ready to fight.

Only a small fraction of those claimed tanks are actually operational. And many are T-55s, T-62s and T-64s. Restoring the tank is one thing, and it will still take time, especially if it is in really bad shape. And then you have to organize and retrain the people to man them. Again the Russian reserve is not drilled or organized. It is just names on paper.

Russia's total military is 766,000.
I said its Ground Forces (the guys with the tanks who maintain and operate them) are only 230,000. Which is correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

Read more carefully.

It comes down to the fact that claiming huge numbers on paper is not the same thing as having them actually available.
Much of the Russian claimed power is smoke and mirrors, claiming tank graveyards and veterans who do not drill as available forces. When they are not.

Tossing an ex soldier who has not trained in a long time in a busted T-55 that has not been maintained for decades with no logistical back up for him does not make a credible force. Claiming it actually constitutes an an available combat unit is silly. Yet you still count that as an available tank.

Now not all of those claimed 22k tanks are BS. But we still have to apply a massive BS factor, making the 22,000 number Bullshit. The actual number of working, usable tanks is much lower than 22,000.

In case you missed it, Saakashvili went on a military revamping crusade, spending as much as 9% of his country's GDP on the military. They had American instructors training them. Heck, that even started on Shevardnadze, in 2002. Are you saying that American instructors are totally inept, Novus America? The Americans had been working with them since 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/world ... ogram.html

A contingent of American Special Forces trainers landed in this former Soviet republic today, adding Georgia to the list of countries where American troops have been sent in the eight-month-old campaign against terrorism.

But hey, I guess, according to Novus America, the best the Green Berets can produce, is left over Soviet Remnants. Of course knowing Novus America, he'll argue that they were trained for counter terrorist training, (hence the tanks,) and that wasn't just an excuse. I'm guessing you really need all those anti-tank missile groups to fight all those tanks that the terrorists possess.

Furthermore, if someone went through reservist training, they are considered reservists. Just because they don't drill for one weekend a month, two weeks a year, doesn't mean that they are going to lose all of those skills they gained. Equipping soldiers in Russia, where military equipment is plentiful, training them, drilling them, can be done in a matter of months, if not weeks. You do realize that other countries do not have to adhere to America's system of counting reservists, right?

It was Csar Alexander the Uno who kept Poland intact. Definitely not our best Csar, he listened too much to his Euro Integration Advisers, and did not even realize that his father was murdered as a result of the Great Game. That's the problem with Csardom, sometimes you just end up with an idiot. The smart thing for Russia to do would've been to simply let Napoleon run wild in Europe, and work on fixing up Russia's internal inefficiencies.

That's exactly what he did, he was attacked by Napoleon as a scheme by the latter to finally subdue the British.

He let Napoleon run wild in Europe, by repeatedly joining anti-Napoleonic Coalitions? Like when he joined the Third Coalition, and the Fourth Coalition?

[Novus America]

I don't think Russia is going to invade Poland but Poland has long felt worried and threatened. That's one of the reasons why they wanted to join NATO and elected a nationalist government last year. They've lost their country to imperialism before.

Sure, but what do Polandball's feelings have to do with the AfD?

Taking Poland refers to conquering it. Not beating it back from Moscow.

Distance and logistics played a critical role in the Polish Soviet war. You clearly do not understand the war if you do not believe that. Sure the civil war weakened logistics further.

Poland also had only just been recreated and had many of the same problems as it was rebuilding its army from almost nothing during the war.

Kaliningrad does not produce large amounts of food, supplies or ammunition. It is an isolated enclave. Those are mostly produced far away from Poland. You have to be able to move the supplies from where they are produced and stored to where they are needed under wartime conditions. This is no easy task.

However the whole point is moot. Russia is not invading Poland and Poland would not be fighting alone anyways.

Yes, logistics played a role. You know what else strained the logistics? The Civil War and being at war since 1914. Yeah, that. The USSR is quite big. Fighting a Civil War in the USSR strains logistics a lot more than fighting in tiny Poland. Oh, and the Baltics are also tiny, so transferring supplies to Kaliningrad, once the Baltics are taken, would be quite easy.

Georgia had poorly maintained Soviet leftovers and did not represent a credible military.

Way to not read the article.
"It will be distinct from Russia's existing military reserves because the part-time personnel will be paid a monthly sum and train regularly.
Russia already has several million military reservists consisting of ex-servicemen, but they do little training as there are restrictions on how often they can be called up.
Defence Ministry officials have previously said that the new reserve force was envisaged at around 5,000 men to begin with, a small figure in a country with around 750,000 frontline troops."

See, here is the thing. Troops and tanks on paper are not the same as available forces. The "million reservists" are just former soldiers who can be recalled in theory. Most countries like the US do not count them as reservists. Because they are not drilled, equipped or organized. Reservists who are not drilled and trained regularly are not ready to fight.

Only a small fraction of those claimed tanks are actually operational. And many are T-55s, T-62s and T-64s. Restoring the tank is one thing, and it will still take time, especially if it is in really bad shape. And then you have to organize and retrain the people to man them. Again the Russian reserve is not drilled or organized. It is just names on paper.

Russia's total military is 766,000.
I said its Ground Forces (the guys with the tanks who maintain and operate them) are only 230,000. Which is correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

Read more carefully.

It comes down to the fact that claiming huge numbers on paper is not the same thing as having them actually available.
Much of the Russian claimed power is smoke and mirrors, claiming tank graveyards and veterans who do not drill as available forces. When they are not.

Tossing an ex soldier who has not trained in a long time in a busted T-55 that has not been maintained for decades with no logistical back up for him does not make a credible force. Claiming it actually constitutes an an available combat unit is silly. Yet you still count that as an available tank.

Now not all of those claimed 22k tanks are BS. But we still have to apply a massive BS factor, making the 22,000 number Bullshit. The actual number of working, usable tanks is much lower than 22,000.

In case you missed it, Saakashvili went on a military revamping crusade, spending as much as 9% of his country's GDP on the military. They had American instructors training them. Heck, that even started on Shevardnadze, in 2002. Are you saying that American instructors are totally inept, Novus America? The Americans had been working with them since 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/world ... ogram.html

A contingent of American Special Forces trainers landed in this former Soviet republic today, adding Georgia to the list of countries where American troops have been sent in the eight-month-old campaign against terrorism.

But hey, I guess, according to Novus America, the best the Green Berets can produce, is left over Soviet Remnants. Of course knowing Novus America, he'll argue that they were trained for counter terrorist training, (hence the tanks,) and that wasn't just an excuse. I'm guessing you really need all those anti-tank missile groups to fight all those tanks that the terrorists possess.

Furthermore, if someone went through reservist training, they are considered reservists. Just because they don't drill for one weekend a month, two weeks a year, doesn't mean that they are going to lose all of those skills they gained. Equipping soldiers in Russia, where military equipment is plentiful, training them, drilling them, can be done in a matter of months, if not weeks. You do realize that other countries do not have to adhere to America's system of counting reservists, right?

That's exactly what he did, he was attacked by Napoleon as a scheme by the latter to finally subdue the British.

He let Napoleon run wild in Europe, by repeatedly joining anti-Napoleonic Coalitions? Like when he joined the Third Coalition, and the Fourth Coalition?

Poland is not that tiny. And the Polish Soviet War was fought over a much larger area than modern Poland. And you still ignore the Polish army was built form basically the ground up DURING the war, Poland had just been re founded, and had a ad hoc force thrown together from mostly whatever WWI leftovers they could get.

Logistics is simply harder than you think, having a force is on paper is not the same is being able to mobilize the whole thing and sustain it in the field. Russia only mobilized 79,000 troops in the Georgian war, and they only advanced a very short distance. You would need more than that to beat Poland which is much larger and stronger than Georgia. Which again is totally a MOOT POINT as Poland is not going to be fighting alone.

Now your source does not mention tanks. Yes Green Berets trained a small number of Georgian forces from 2002 to 2004. This of course did not give the Georgians magic woo powers, it surely made them better than they would have been without it but a little training is not going to make a sad military into a mighty force. And an improvement over a very low base still leaves you low. 150 Green Berets not have the magic ability to make a sad military into a strong force by giving only some of them two years of training. This does not mean the Green Berets were incompetent. I guess you think Green Berets are so great than 150 of them in two years can turn a "tiny" force (by your own source) into a major force with some training. No troops ever in history could do that. Not even Green Berets. Not even freaking superman could do that.

In the war with Russia, Georgia had only a 20,000 TOTAL men, including reservists. VS 79,0000 Russians! Yes Russia won. No shit. Though Georgia barely even fought, losing only 169 dead. Yes Russia destroyed some of Georgia's T-72s it inherited from the Soviets.
Oh and not to mention the Georgians only had a handful of (Soviet leftover) frogfoots in its air force. It had NO air to air fighters. So Russia had complete air dominance as well.

So what the hell did Georgia spend that money on? I mean 9% of Georgia's laughably miniscule GDP is not much total money, but surely they could have afforded some fighters. Anyways...

Yes 79,000 Russian's with uncontested air superiority did beat 20,000 Georgians. No shit.

Georgia with a population of 3.7 million and a GDP of only $14.372 billion does not have a snowball's chance in hell against Russia in a conventional war. (freaking Wyoming has twice that GDP).
I am not sure why you are trying to insist crushing a tiny impoverished backwater next door is some mighty victory of arms. Some US training and Humvees is not going to overcome that disparity.

Military skills rapidly atrophy without training. You will not forget everything, but you will forget a lot.
And again much of the equipment Russia has in storage, including the 2,800 T-55s are not going to be much good, that of it that is even still functional. Claiming them all as available forces is just silly.

Sure different countries calculate their reserves differently. Making a comparison based on different calculations is meaningless. This is the point, you cannot claim superiority just by using different numbers. Just calculating differently does not ACTUALLY increase you actual combat strength! The US has tons of veterans and old tanks in tank graveyards too. Many countries do. Only Russia and North Korea claim them to look tougher on paper though. I could make the US look tougher by just screwing with the numbers, technically every able bodied man from 17-45 is part of the Reserve Militia in the US. Meaning technically, on paper the US has a reserve of some 60 MILLION. And I could count all the 50s and 60s shit we have stored. In theory we could, mobilize and equip a force 60 million. But come on. That is BS. Count what you actually have ready to go. Not what you could have in theory if you went full total war.

[Shofercia]

Sure, but what do Polandball's feelings have to do with the AfD?




Yes, logistics played a role. You know what else strained the logistics? The Civil War and being at war since 1914. Yeah, that. The USSR is quite big. Fighting a Civil War in the USSR strains logistics a lot more than fighting in tiny Poland. Oh, and the Baltics are also tiny, so transferring supplies to Kaliningrad, once the Baltics are taken, would be quite easy.




In case you missed it, Saakashvili went on a military revamping crusade, spending as much as 9% of his country's GDP on the military. They had American instructors training them. Heck, that even started on Shevardnadze, in 2002. Are you saying that American instructors are totally inept, Novus America? The Americans had been working with them since 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/world ... ogram.html



But hey, I guess, according to Novus America, the best the Green Berets can produce, is left over Soviet Remnants. Of course knowing Novus America, he'll argue that they were trained for counter terrorist training, (hence the tanks,) and that wasn't just an excuse. I'm guessing you really need all those anti-tank missile groups to fight all those tanks that the terrorists possess.

Furthermore, if someone went through reservist training, they are considered reservists. Just because they don't drill for one weekend a month, two weeks a year, doesn't mean that they are going to lose all of those skills they gained. Equipping soldiers in Russia, where military equipment is plentiful, training them, drilling them, can be done in a matter of months, if not weeks. You do realize that other countries do not have to adhere to America's system of counting reservists, right?




He let Napoleon run wild in Europe, by repeatedly joining anti-Napoleonic Coalitions? Like when he joined the Third Coalition, and the Fourth Coalition?

Poland is not that tiny. And the Polish Soviet War was fought over a much larger area than modern Poland. And you still ignore the Polish army was built form basically the ground up DURING the war, Poland had just been re founded, and had a ad hoc force thrown together from mostly whatever WWI leftovers they could get.

Logistics is simply harder than you think, having a force is on paper is not the same is being able to mobilize the whole thing and sustain it in the field. Russia only mobilized 79,000 troops in the Georgian war, and they only advanced a very short distance. You would need more than that to beat Poland which is much larger and stronger than Georgia. Which again is totally a MOOT POINT as Poland is not going to be fighting alone.

Now your source does not mention tanks. Yes Green Berets trained a small number of Georgian forces from 2002 to 2004. This of course did not give the Georgians magic woo powers, it surely made them better than they would have been without it but a little training is not going to make a sad military into a mighty force. And an improvement over a very low base still leaves you low. 150 Green Berets not have the magic ability to make a sad military into a strong force by giving only some of them two years of training. This does not mean the Green Berets were incompetent. I guess you think Green Berets are so great than 150 of them in two years can turn a "tiny" force (by your own source) into a major force with some training. No troops ever in history could do that. Not even Green Berets. Not even freaking superman could do that.

In the war with Russia, Georgia had only a 20,000 TOTAL men, including reservists. VS 79,0000 Russians! Yes Russia won. No shit. Though Georgia barely even fought, losing only 169 dead. Yes Russia destroyed some of Georgia's T-72s it inherited from the Soviets.
Oh and not to mention the Georgians only had a handful of (Soviet leftover) frogfoots in its air force. It had NO air to air fighters. So Russia had complete air dominance as well.

So what the hell did Georgia spend that money on? I mean 9% of Georgia's laughably miniscule GDP is not much total money, but surely they could have afforded some fighters. Anyways...

Yes 79,000 Russian's with uncontested air superiority did beat 20,000 Georgians. No shit.

Georgia with a population of 3.7 million and a GDP of only $14.372 billion does not have a snowball's chance in hell against Russia in a conventional war. (freaking Wyoming has twice that GDP).
I am not sure why you are trying to insist crushing a tiny impoverished backwater next door is some mighty victory of arms. Some US training and Humvees is not going to overcome that disparity.

Military skills rapidly atrophy without training. You will not forget everything, but you will forget a lot.
And again much of the equipment Russia has in storage, including the 2,800 T-55s are not going to be much good, that of it that is even still functional. Claiming them all as available forces is just silly.

Sure different countries calculate their reserves differently. Making a comparison based on different calculations is meaningless. This is the point, you cannot claim superiority just by using different numbers. Just calculating differently does not ACTUALLY increase you actual combat strength! The US has tons of veterans and old tanks in tank graveyards too. Many countries do. Only Russia and North Korea claim them to look tougher on paper though. I could make the US look tougher by just screwing with the numbers, technically every able bodied man from 17-45 is part of the Reserve Militia in the US. Meaning technically, on paper the US has a reserve of some 60 MILLION. And I could count all the 50s and 60s shit we have stored. In theory we could, mobilize and equip a force 60 million. But come on. That is BS. Count what you actually have ready to go. Not what you could have in theory if you went full total war.

You seem to be constantly ignoring that there was this thing called the CIVIL WAR that was ongoing. Beating a country during the CIVIL WAR doesn't make you bad ass. Heck, if the French and British joined the South and the North lost, you'd still have plenty of butthurt.

Russia did not need to mobilize many troops to fight Georgia. At the time, Georgia had 40,000, roughly half of them in reserves, so mobilizing twice that number probably sufficed. You don't really need massive mobilization when you're fighting Georgia. They're currently 0-4. That's not a good score. That's like the Bush-Clinton score when it comes to rebuilding nations. Regarding American training, let's see here, they arrived in 2002, and the war started in 2008, by Saakashvili, so let's see here, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, yeah, I'd say that's probably more than 2 years.

Next you're talking about 79,000 Russians fighting in Georgia. That's remarkable, because here you are, Novus America, boldly spouting numbers and logistics, while failing to realize that the only pathway into South Ossetia, the region where most of the fighting occurred, that was heavily used, was the Roki Tunnel, and introducing over 79,000 soldiers through it would be logistically challenging. Not sure where you even came up with the 79,000 number, but I sincerely hope that you didn't actually get that from Wikipedia, because when it comes to contentious articles about Russia, sometimes Wikipedia just pulls random numbers out of its ass. Let's ask actual reporters, not those who claim to know a lot about logistics and troop movements, only to get random numbers from a sometimes cabal driven source that anyone can edit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 812-3.html

Starting at 2:06 a.m. on Aug. 8, the tickers of international press agencies began running reports of Russian tanks in the Roki tunnel. Depending on the estimate, the Russians moved between 5,500 and 10,000 soldiers into South Ossetia through the Roki tunnel. Meanwhile, there were already between 7,000 and 10,000 Russian soldiers at the Georgian-Abkhazian border, many of them brought there on ships from Russia. The "Moskva," a guided missile cruiser and flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, with the fleet commander himself on board, was patrolling off the Georgian coast.

Yeah, between 5,500 and 10,000. That's not exactly 79,000 Novus America. That's roughly 8 times less. Don't trust Wikipedia when it comes to Russia, you'll simply embarrass yourself. Repeatedly. If you actually studied the war, and I mean actually studied, not read the New York Times, http://exiledonline.com/how-to-screw-up ... ork/all/1/, or Wikipedia, or other crap, you'd know that when the Russians first routed the Georgians, they were actually outnumbered by the Georgians. What happened is that Russians had previous combat experience, better unit cohesion, smarter strategic and tactical plans, etc. But if you can logistically get 79,000 people with equipment through the Roki Tunnel in a few hours, please, let us know how you managed that feat. After all, as someone said, logistics are important.

Oh, and obviously Russia was going to beat Georgia, the remarkable part was how quickly the war was won. Three days of Russian involvement was all it took, the rest was just mopping up and raiding bases. No, Bush, Putin will not give you back the Humvees. Oh, and if you're training for one weekend a month two weeks a year, yeah, your skills will atrophy. If you served a year in the Russian Military, they'll take quite a while to atrophy. As in decades. Of course I'm talking about actually serving, not sitting back in some HQ, or keeping watch over equipment.

[Novus America]

Poland is not that tiny. And the Polish Soviet War was fought over a much larger area than modern Poland. And you still ignore the Polish army was built form basically the ground up DURING the war, Poland had just been re founded, and had a ad hoc force thrown together from mostly whatever WWI leftovers they could get.

Logistics is simply harder than you think, having a force is on paper is not the same is being able to mobilize the whole thing and sustain it in the field. Russia only mobilized 79,000 troops in the Georgian war, and they only advanced a very short distance. You would need more than that to beat Poland which is much larger and stronger than Georgia. Which again is totally a MOOT POINT as Poland is not going to be fighting alone.

Now your source does not mention tanks. Yes Green Berets trained a small number of Georgian forces from 2002 to 2004. This of course did not give the Georgians magic woo powers, it surely made them better than they would have been without it but a little training is not going to make a sad military into a mighty force. And an improvement over a very low base still leaves you low. 150 Green Berets not have the magic ability to make a sad military into a strong force by giving only some of them two years of training. This does not mean the Green Berets were incompetent. I guess you think Green Berets are so great than 150 of them in two years can turn a "tiny" force (by your own source) into a major force with some training. No troops ever in history could do that. Not even Green Berets. Not even freaking superman could do that.

In the war with Russia, Georgia had only a 20,000 TOTAL men, including reservists. VS 79,0000 Russians! Yes Russia won. No shit. Though Georgia barely even fought, losing only 169 dead. Yes Russia destroyed some of Georgia's T-72s it inherited from the Soviets.
Oh and not to mention the Georgians only had a handful of (Soviet leftover) frogfoots in its air force. It had NO air to air fighters. So Russia had complete air dominance as well.

So what the hell did Georgia spend that money on? I mean 9% of Georgia's laughably miniscule GDP is not much total money, but surely they could have afforded some fighters. Anyways...

Yes 79,000 Russian's with uncontested air superiority did beat 20,000 Georgians. No shit.

Georgia with a population of 3.7 million and a GDP of only $14.372 billion does not have a snowball's chance in hell against Russia in a conventional war. (freaking Wyoming has twice that GDP).
I am not sure why you are trying to insist crushing a tiny impoverished backwater next door is some mighty victory of arms. Some US training and Humvees is not going to overcome that disparity.

Military skills rapidly atrophy without training. You will not forget everything, but you will forget a lot.
And again much of the equipment Russia has in storage, including the 2,800 T-55s are not going to be much good, that of it that is even still functional. Claiming them all as available forces is just silly.

Sure different countries calculate their reserves differently. Making a comparison based on different calculations is meaningless. This is the point, you cannot claim superiority just by using different numbers. Just calculating differently does not ACTUALLY increase you actual combat strength! The US has tons of veterans and old tanks in tank graveyards too. Many countries do. Only Russia and North Korea claim them to look tougher on paper though. I could make the US look tougher by just screwing with the numbers, technically every able bodied man from 17-45 is part of the Reserve Militia in the US. Meaning technically, on paper the US has a reserve of some 60 MILLION. And I could count all the 50s and 60s shit we have stored. In theory we could, mobilize and equip a force 60 million. But come on. That is BS. Count what you actually have ready to go. Not what you could have in theory if you went full total war.

You seem to be constantly ignoring that there was this thing called the CIVIL WAR that was ongoing. Beating a country during the CIVIL WAR doesn't make you bad ass. Heck, if the French and British joined the South and the North lost, you'd still have plenty of butthurt.

Russia did not need to mobilize many troops to fight Georgia. At the time, Georgia had 40,000, roughly half of them in reserves, so mobilizing twice that number probably sufficed. You don't really need massive mobilization when you're fighting Georgia. They're currently 0-4. That's not a good score. That's like the Bush-Clinton score when it comes to rebuilding nations. Regarding American training, let's see here, they arrived in 2002, and the war started in 2008, by Saakashvili, so let's see here, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, yeah, I'd say that's probably more than 2 years.

Next you're talking about 79,000 Russians fighting in Georgia. That's remarkable, because here you are, Novus America, boldly spouting numbers and logistics, while failing to realize that the only pathway into South Ossetia, the region where most of the fighting occurred, that was heavily used, was the Roki Tunnel, and introducing over 79,000 soldiers through it would be logistically challenging. Not sure where you even came up with the 79,000 number, but I sincerely hope that you didn't actually get that from Wikipedia, because when it comes to contentious articles about Russia, sometimes Wikipedia just pulls random numbers out of its ass. Let's ask actual reporters, not those who claim to know a lot about logistics and troop movements, only to get random numbers from a sometimes cabal driven source that anyone can edit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 812-3.html

Starting at 2:06 a.m. on Aug. 8, the tickers of international press agencies began running reports of Russian tanks in the Roki tunnel. Depending on the estimate, the Russians moved between 5,500 and 10,000 soldiers into South Ossetia through the Roki tunnel. Meanwhile, there were already between 7,000 and 10,000 Russian soldiers at the Georgian-Abkhazian border, many of them brought there on ships from Russia. The "Moskva," a guided missile cruiser and flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, with the fleet commander himself on board, was patrolling off the Georgian coast.

Yeah, between 5,500 and 10,000. That's not exactly 79,000 Novus America. That's roughly 8 times less. Don't trust Wikipedia when it comes to Russia, you'll simply embarrass yourself. Repeatedly. If you actually studied the war, and I mean actually studied, not read the New York Times, http://exiledonline.com/how-to-screw-up ... ork/all/1/, or Wikipedia, or other crap, you'd know that when the Russians first routed the Georgians, they were actually outnumbered by the Georgians. What happened is that Russians had previous combat experience, better unit cohesion, smarter strategic and tactical plans, etc. But if you can logistically get 79,000 people with equipment through the Roki Tunnel in a few hours, please, let us know how you managed that feat. After all, as someone said, logistics are important.

Oh, and obviously Russia was going to beat Georgia, the remarkable part was how quickly the war was won. Three days of Russian involvement was all it took, the rest was just mopping up and raiding bases. No, Bush, Putin will not give you back the Humvees. Oh, and if you're training for one weekend a month two weeks a year, yeah, your skills will atrophy. If you served a year in the Russian Military, they'll take quite a while to atrophy. As in decades. Of course I'm talking about actually serving, not sitting back in some HQ, or keeping watch over equipment.

Again you have to consider Poland had a cobbled together and ad hoc army from almost nothing. That makes fighting harder.

As far as the 10,000 goes was that just in the first few hours? In the entire war it seems to be more. In addition to the tunnel Airborne troops were used, plus there was an amphibious assault via Abkhazia.
This source states that the Russians had much larger numbers and is credible. (70,000 in Ossetia alone). And Georgia only had 20,000.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cac ... 9IXSDT3anM
Certainly is more credible than "exiled online". And states Russia had had Georgia intially outnumbered. Plus Russia always had total air superiority which is a big deal.

Anyway yes we can agree Russia was going to win no matter what. And it seemed Georgia barely bothered to fight, no doubt knowing it was futile. Georgia seemed unwilling to suffer any real casualties. Georgian unwillingness to die for no reason played a big role. Like I said no amount of training was going to save Georgia.

While your skills will not stay up to active levels at one weekend a month and two weeks a year it will keep them up much better than doing no training at all. Obviously.

And you realize most US reservists serve at least 2-4 years on active duty first? Not one like the Russians. The US does not have one year enlistments. Or conscripts.

A guy with 4 years active service and then one weekend a month and two weeks a year is going to be much better than a guy with 1 year as a conscript and no additional training. And a year of service is not going to last "decades", do you have a source for that?

Having an organized drilled reserve is vital, and much better than trying to cobble something together from ex soldiers and stored equipment. Russia has acknowledged that it needs to modernize its reserve, and will be moving towards the US system. But intially the force is going to be limited to 5,000, seems due to Russia's poor economic performance the past few years.

And bad equipment is still bad. Point remains that to compare two reserve forces you have to use the same method an comprable equipment.
Claiming what you could theoretically mobilize in a total war is not very helpful. Especially when it is pulling angient T-55s, 62s and 64s out and trying to get them working again.

So claiming tank graveyards is a stretch at best. Again only Russia and North Korea do it, because it is empty posturing.

So claiming Russia has 22,000 tanks is disingenuous. Unless you apply the same method to everyone else. Apply one method to one and one to another creates completely skewed results.

Sure you can manipulate the numbers all day. Again that does not actually make your forces stronger.

[Ralkovian Grand Island]

Also consider that most European Millennials are vehemently against fighting any sort of war for any sort of reason. I think most European countries millennial populations hover at around 20%-30% willing to defend their nation in wartime.

Which bit of your arse did you extract this figure from?

DIS ONE! DUHHHHHH! IT'S LIBBBBBERAL DOOO! HUR HUR HUR! SURE HURT MY ASS!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03 ... 40594.html

[Othelos]

No we can't. Price is artificial. Russia, an ex-Soviet state and former socialist economy which did not ascribe a proper market value to things like military equipment, was already able to build up vast stockpiles based on need, not constrained by cost - because the "cost" didn't exist the same way it did in the west.

Same with the pay of a conscript, or even a professional soldier.

West Germany "could" field 600,000 men because it had no other choice. West Germany was the front line of Europe.

Also consider that most European Millennials are vehemently against fighting any sort of war for any sort of reason. I think most European countries millennial populations hover at around 20%-30% willing to defend their nation in wartime.

Well, who would? Dying in someone else's war isn't in my plans.

[The Intergalactic Universe Corporation]

It is excellent that the AfD beat Merkel in her own so called "home region", because it is time for her to wake up that 1.1 million refugees taken by Germany is not doing anything good for Germans themselves. Besides, those who say that they are kind hearted and condemn nationalists for protecting their own interests instead of helping others, I want to ask, will you let random refugees sleep in your family home out of kindness?

[Allet Klar Chefs]

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a shit hole and has always been, since reunification, the home of the extreme right.

Nowt to fuss about.

[Socialist Nordia]

Why? Because of all the harm refugees have done? Give me a break, this is ridiculous. You can't tell me xenophobia isn't the driving force behind this.

[Shofercia]

You seem to be constantly ignoring that there was this thing called the CIVIL WAR that was ongoing. Beating a country during the CIVIL WAR doesn't make you bad ass. Heck, if the French and British joined the South and the North lost, you'd still have plenty of butthurt.

Russia did not need to mobilize many troops to fight Georgia. At the time, Georgia had 40,000, roughly half of them in reserves, so mobilizing twice that number probably sufficed. You don't really need massive mobilization when you're fighting Georgia. They're currently 0-4. That's not a good score. That's like the Bush-Clinton score when it comes to rebuilding nations. Regarding American training, let's see here, they arrived in 2002, and the war started in 2008, by Saakashvili, so let's see here, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, yeah, I'd say that's probably more than 2 years.

Next you're talking about 79,000 Russians fighting in Georgia. That's remarkable, because here you are, Novus America, boldly spouting numbers and logistics, while failing to realize that the only pathway into South Ossetia, the region where most of the fighting occurred, that was heavily used, was the Roki Tunnel, and introducing over 79,000 soldiers through it would be logistically challenging. Not sure where you even came up with the 79,000 number, but I sincerely hope that you didn't actually get that from Wikipedia, because when it comes to contentious articles about Russia, sometimes Wikipedia just pulls random numbers out of its ass. Let's ask actual reporters, not those who claim to know a lot about logistics and troop movements, only to get random numbers from a sometimes cabal driven source that anyone can edit: http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor ... 812-3.html



Yeah, between 5,500 and 10,000. That's not exactly 79,000 Novus America. That's roughly 8 times less. Don't trust Wikipedia when it comes to Russia, you'll simply embarrass yourself. Repeatedly. If you actually studied the war, and I mean actually studied, not read the New York Times, http://exiledonline.com/how-to-screw-up ... ork/all/1/, or Wikipedia, or other crap, you'd know that when the Russians first routed the Georgians, they were actually outnumbered by the Georgians. What happened is that Russians had previous combat experience, better unit cohesion, smarter strategic and tactical plans, etc. But if you can logistically get 79,000 people with equipment through the Roki Tunnel in a few hours, please, let us know how you managed that feat. After all, as someone said, logistics are important.

Oh, and obviously Russia was going to beat Georgia, the remarkable part was how quickly the war was won. Three days of Russian involvement was all it took, the rest was just mopping up and raiding bases. No, Bush, Putin will not give you back the Humvees. Oh, and if you're training for one weekend a month two weeks a year, yeah, your skills will atrophy. If you served a year in the Russian Military, they'll take quite a while to atrophy. As in decades. Of course I'm talking about actually serving, not sitting back in some HQ, or keeping watch over equipment.

Again you have to consider Poland had a cobbled together and ad hoc army from almost nothing. That makes fighting harder.

As far as the 10,000 goes was that just in the first few hours? In the entire war it seems to be more. In addition to the tunnel Airborne troops were used, plus there was an amphibious assault via Abkhazia.
This source states that the Russians had much larger numbers and is credible. (70,000 in Ossetia alone). And Georgia only had 20,000.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cac ... 9IXSDT3anM
Certainly is more credible than "exiled online". And states Russia had had Georgia intially outnumbered. Plus Russia always had total air superiority which is a big deal.

Anyway yes we can agree Russia was going to win no matter what. And it seemed Georgia barely bothered to fight, no doubt knowing it was futile. Georgia seemed unwilling to suffer any real casualties. Georgian unwillingness to die for no reason played a big role. Like I said no amount of training was going to save Georgia.

While your skills will not stay up to active levels at one weekend a month and two weeks a year it will keep them up much better than doing no training at all. Obviously.

And you realize most US reservists serve at least 2-4 years on active duty first? Not one like the Russians. The US does not have one year enlistments. Or conscripts.

A guy with 4 years active service and then one weekend a month and two weeks a year is going to be much better than a guy with 1 year as a conscript and no additional training. And a year of service is not going to last "decades", do you have a source for that?

Having an organized drilled reserve is vital, and much better than trying to cobble something together from ex soldiers and stored equipment. Russia has acknowledged that it needs to modernize its reserve, and will be moving towards the US system. But intially the force is going to be limited to 5,000, seems due to Russia's poor economic performance the past few years.

And bad equipment is still bad. Point remains that to compare two reserve forces you have to use the same method an comprable equipment.
Claiming what you could theoretically mobilize in a total war is not very helpful. Especially when it is pulling angient T-55s, 62s and 64s out and trying to get them working again.

So claiming tank graveyards is a stretch at best. Again only Russia and North Korea do it, because it is empty posturing.

So claiming Russia has 22,000 tanks is disingenuous. Unless you apply the same method to everyone else. Apply one method to one and one to another creates completely skewed results.

Sure you can manipulate the numbers all day. Again that does not actually make your forces stronger.

Ahhh yes, Jamestown, the authors of the The Guns of August, a really bad work of fiction written about the Ossetian War. The Airborne Forces were part of the 10,000. Do your most credible of sources actually list specific units that participated? Or are we to assume that the entire 58th Army magically teleported into Georgia. Jamestown Foundation might actually assume that, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Once again, I said that Georgia had roughly 20,000 regulars and roughly 20,000 reserves. That was true. The Russian Air Force targeted the reserve bases. So either the Russians love hitting empty barracks, or the Russian Air Force actually prevented the reserves from being properly deployed. Here, for instance, is a Georgian Brigade:

HQ - 60 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men, consisting of 3 infantry companies, an anti-tank company (probably for all of those tanks that terrorists have,) mortar squad and grenade squad (AGS)
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Mechanized Bat - 380 men, with 30 T-72, 15 BMP-2
Support Bat - 288 men
Arty Bat - 371 men, 18 D-30, 12 120mm mortar 4 Shilka
HQ Company - 108 men
Recon Company - 101 men, 8 BTR-80
Comms Company - 88 men, 3 BTR-80
Engineering Company - 96 men

Can your sources actually cite a Russian ORBAT with that accuracy? Probably not. And Exiled Online is more credible than Jamestown when it comes to the Ossetian War. Oh, and Mark Ames was there for the The Nation, not Exiled Online. Georgia suffered over 1,100 casualties, or over 11% of the forces that intially engaged. They were quite willing to fight. They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did. But they weren't chickenshits, unlike their president. Oh, and I've already moved on to the T-72s, but please continue to talk about T-64s and T-55s. It's quite amusing.

[Novus America]

Again you have to consider Poland had a cobbled together and ad hoc army from almost nothing. That makes fighting harder.

As far as the 10,000 goes was that just in the first few hours? In the entire war it seems to be more. In addition to the tunnel Airborne troops were used, plus there was an amphibious assault via Abkhazia.
This source states that the Russians had much larger numbers and is credible. (70,000 in Ossetia alone). And Georgia only had 20,000.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cac ... 9IXSDT3anM
Certainly is more credible than "exiled online". And states Russia had had Georgia intially outnumbered. Plus Russia always had total air superiority which is a big deal.

Anyway yes we can agree Russia was going to win no matter what. And it seemed Georgia barely bothered to fight, no doubt knowing it was futile. Georgia seemed unwilling to suffer any real casualties. Georgian unwillingness to die for no reason played a big role. Like I said no amount of training was going to save Georgia.

While your skills will not stay up to active levels at one weekend a month and two weeks a year it will keep them up much better than doing no training at all. Obviously.

And you realize most US reservists serve at least 2-4 years on active duty first? Not one like the Russians. The US does not have one year enlistments. Or conscripts.

A guy with 4 years active service and then one weekend a month and two weeks a year is going to be much better than a guy with 1 year as a conscript and no additional training. And a year of service is not going to last "decades", do you have a source for that?

Having an organized drilled reserve is vital, and much better than trying to cobble something together from ex soldiers and stored equipment. Russia has acknowledged that it needs to modernize its reserve, and will be moving towards the US system. But intially the force is going to be limited to 5,000, seems due to Russia's poor economic performance the past few years.

And bad equipment is still bad. Point remains that to compare two reserve forces you have to use the same method an comprable equipment.
Claiming what you could theoretically mobilize in a total war is not very helpful. Especially when it is pulling angient T-55s, 62s and 64s out and trying to get them working again.

So claiming tank graveyards is a stretch at best. Again only Russia and North Korea do it, because it is empty posturing.

So claiming Russia has 22,000 tanks is disingenuous. Unless you apply the same method to everyone else. Apply one method to one and one to another creates completely skewed results.

Sure you can manipulate the numbers all day. Again that does not actually make your forces stronger.

Ahhh yes, Jamestown, the authors of the The Guns of August, a really bad work of fiction written about the Ossetian War. The Airborne Forces were part of the 10,000. Do your most credible of sources actually list specific units that participated? Or are we to assume that the entire 58th Army magically teleported into Georgia. Jamestown Foundation might actually assume that, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Once again, I said that Georgia had roughly 20,000 regulars and roughly 20,000 reserves. That was true. The Russian Air Force targeted the reserve bases. So either the Russians love hitting empty barracks, or the Russian Air Force actually prevented the reserves from being properly deployed. Here, for instance, is a Georgian Brigade:

HQ - 60 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men, consisting of 3 infantry companies, an anti-tank company (probably for all of those tanks that terrorists have,) mortar squad and grenade squad (AGS)
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Mechanized Bat - 380 men, with 30 T-72, 15 BMP-2
Support Bat - 288 men
Arty Bat - 371 men, 18 D-30, 12 120mm mortar 4 Shilka
HQ Company - 108 men
Recon Company - 101 men, 8 BTR-80
Comms Company - 88 men, 3 BTR-80
Engineering Company - 96 men

Can your sources actually cite a Russian ORBAT with that accuracy? Probably not. And Exiled Online is more credible than Jamestown when it comes to the Ossetian War. Oh, and Mark Ames was there for the The Nation, not Exiled Online. Georgia suffered over 1,100 casualties, or over 11% of the forces that intially engaged. They were quite willing to fight. They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did. But they weren't chickenshits, unlike their president. Oh, and I've already moved on to the T-72s, but please continue to talk about T-64s and T-55s. It's quite amusing.

The South Ossetia war is pretty off topic. And you are not going to accept the mainstream sources.

Okay, you have moved on to T-72s. So you admit the 22k number is BS. Because you are now subtracting things older than T-72s. So how many actual, functioning, deployable, modern tanks does Russia have? Certainly not 22k as we now have to subtract at least the 7k or so T-55s, 62s, and 64s.

[New Werpland]

Again you have to consider Poland had a cobbled together and ad hoc army from almost nothing. That makes fighting harder.

As far as the 10,000 goes was that just in the first few hours? In the entire war it seems to be more. In addition to the tunnel Airborne troops were used, plus there was an amphibious assault via Abkhazia.
This source states that the Russians had much larger numbers and is credible. (70,000 in Ossetia alone). And Georgia only had 20,000.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cac ... 9IXSDT3anM
Certainly is more credible than "exiled online". And states Russia had had Georgia intially outnumbered. Plus Russia always had total air superiority which is a big deal.

Anyway yes we can agree Russia was going to win no matter what. And it seemed Georgia barely bothered to fight, no doubt knowing it was futile. Georgia seemed unwilling to suffer any real casualties. Georgian unwillingness to die for no reason played a big role. Like I said no amount of training was going to save Georgia.

While your skills will not stay up to active levels at one weekend a month and two weeks a year it will keep them up much better than doing no training at all. Obviously.

And you realize most US reservists serve at least 2-4 years on active duty first? Not one like the Russians. The US does not have one year enlistments. Or conscripts.

A guy with 4 years active service and then one weekend a month and two weeks a year is going to be much better than a guy with 1 year as a conscript and no additional training. And a year of service is not going to last "decades", do you have a source for that?

Having an organized drilled reserve is vital, and much better than trying to cobble something together from ex soldiers and stored equipment. Russia has acknowledged that it needs to modernize its reserve, and will be moving towards the US system. But intially the force is going to be limited to 5,000, seems due to Russia's poor economic performance the past few years.

And bad equipment is still bad. Point remains that to compare two reserve forces you have to use the same method an comprable equipment.
Claiming what you could theoretically mobilize in a total war is not very helpful. Especially when it is pulling angient T-55s, 62s and 64s out and trying to get them working again.

So claiming tank graveyards is a stretch at best. Again only Russia and North Korea do it, because it is empty posturing.

So claiming Russia has 22,000 tanks is disingenuous. Unless you apply the same method to everyone else. Apply one method to one and one to another creates completely skewed results.

Sure you can manipulate the numbers all day. Again that does not actually make your forces stronger.

Ahhh yes, Jamestown, the authors of the The Guns of August, a really bad work of fiction written about the Ossetian War. The Airborne Forces were part of the 10,000. Do your most credible of sources actually list specific units that participated? Or are we to assume that the entire 58th Army magically teleported into Georgia. Jamestown Foundation might actually assume that, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Once again, I said that Georgia had roughly 20,000 regulars and roughly 20,000 reserves. That was true. The Russian Air Force targeted the reserve bases. So either the Russians love hitting empty barracks, or the Russian Air Force actually prevented the reserves from being properly deployed. Here, for instance, is a Georgian Brigade:

HQ - 60 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men, consisting of 3 infantry companies, an anti-tank company (probably for all of those tanks that terrorists have,) mortar squad and grenade squad (AGS)
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Lit Inf Bat - 591 men
Mechanized Bat - 380 men, with 30 T-72, 15 BMP-2
Support Bat - 288 men
Arty Bat - 371 men, 18 D-30, 12 120mm mortar 4 Shilka
HQ Company - 108 men
Recon Company - 101 men, 8 BTR-80
Comms Company - 88 men, 3 BTR-80
Engineering Company - 96 men

Can your sources actually cite a Russian ORBAT with that accuracy? Probably not. And Exiled Online is more credible than Jamestown when it comes to the Ossetian War. Oh, and Mark Ames was there for the The Nation, not Exiled Online. Georgia suffered over 1,100 casualties, or over 11% of the forces that intially engaged. They were quite willing to fight. They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did. But they weren't chickenshits, unlike their president. Oh, and I've already moved on to the T-72s, but please continue to talk about T-64s and T-55s. It's quite amusing.

One of the authors of The Guns of August is affiliated with the Jamestown Foundation. Though I don't think this line of conversation is important, and you probably never read it.

Most of the good troops were in Afghanistan, that's why they were so bad regardless of the dramatic imbalance when it came to air forces.

And coincidentally you've also come upon the correct reason for why the Georgian Military committed war crimes.

They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did.

I don't know why it took you so long to realize that it wasn't some grand ethnic cleansing attempt, but just immoral and really fucking stupid ineptitude.

Human Rights Watch came to that conclusion long ago:

Human Rights Watch's research documented a number of indiscriminate and disproportionate artillery attacks by Georgian forces on South Ossetia and other attacks, which were part of the ground assault. These attacks caused excessive harm to civilians with respect to the military advantage that was to be gained. In particular, Georgian forces made extensive use in civilian areas of multiple-rocket launching systems, known as Grad (Russian for hail), which cannot be targeted with sufficient precision to distinguish between civilian and military objects - thereby causing indiscriminate harm to civilians. The very use of Grad rockets in areas populated by civilians is just one way in which Georgian forces conducted attacks in South Ossetia disregarding the safety of civilians.

Several Ossetian civilians reported looting by Georgian ground forces but otherwise generally did not complain of other abusive treatment during the ground offensive by Georgian troops.[120] Those detained by Georgian forces, however, reported they were ill-treated when taken into custody (see Chapter ).

.....

Madina M. from Khetagurovo said that she was terrified when Georgian troops entered the village, but to her surprise they were "polite" and did not harm her. She said,

"They were going from yard to yard and looking for young guys. They did not know our guys weren't around anymore. I was so frightened … I thought they'd be doing cruel things to women and to the elderly, like during the first war, back in 1992. But they were … polite, really. They kept saying that they had an order not to touch women, children, and old people, and we had nothing to fear from them. They were so young-seemed to be 19 or 20, no more than that. Those who came into our basement even told us, "We don't want to die either."

It would be nice if you realized that the demigod, Mark Ames, has faults as well. Judging by the way you bring up his article about the Russo-Georgian War nearly each month, it seems as if you really really like him. Maybe you should see what other enlightened things he has to say about Georgia: like this gem. A true case of journalistic courage and ethics where Mark Ames talks about shit he doesn't know.

[Ermarian]

Note that M-V is a very thinly populated (#16 out of 16) ex-GDR backwater with little urbanization and very little diversity. If anything, this ~20% result is a high water mark.

It'll be more interesting what happens next week in Berlin, where polls are projecting the AfD to get about 10-15%. This is more worrying (particularly since it's not far behind the bigger parties, which all hover between 15-25%), but it looks like a safe bet that the majority government there will be either Red-red-green or a green-aided grand coalition.

[Shofercia]

Ahhh yes, Jamestown, the authors of the The Guns of August, a really bad work of fiction written about the Ossetian War. The Airborne Forces were part of the 10,000. Do your most credible of sources actually list specific units that participated? Or are we to assume that the entire 58th Army magically teleported into Georgia. Jamestown Foundation might actually assume that, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Once again, I said that Georgia had roughly 20,000 regulars and roughly 20,000 reserves. That was true. The Russian Air Force targeted the reserve bases. So either the Russians love hitting empty barracks, or the Russian Air Force actually prevented the reserves from being properly deployed. Here, for instance, is a Georgian Brigade:



Can your sources actually cite a Russian ORBAT with that accuracy? Probably not. And Exiled Online is more credible than Jamestown when it comes to the Ossetian War. Oh, and Mark Ames was there for the The Nation, not Exiled Online. Georgia suffered over 1,100 casualties, or over 11% of the forces that intially engaged. They were quite willing to fight. They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did. But they weren't chickenshits, unlike their president. Oh, and I've already moved on to the T-72s, but please continue to talk about T-64s and T-55s. It's quite amusing.

The South Ossetia war is pretty off topic. And you are not going to accept the mainstream sources.

Okay, you have moved on to T-72s. So you admit the 22k number is BS. Because you are now subtracting things older than T-72s. So how many actual, functioning, deployable, modern tanks does Russia have? Certainly not 22k as we now have to subtract at least the 7k or so T-55s, 62s, and 64s.

How many T-72s were built and remained in Russia? What about the tanks built after the T-72, like the T-80 variant? And then there are the T-90s. There's a good chance that the 22k number was the high end of the spectrum that included tanks that have been phased out, or should be phased out. But that could also not be the case. Some sources claim that as many as 50,000 T-72 tanks were built: http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/ Of course sources vary wildly as to how many T-72s were built. One should also take into account the number of T-80 tanks and T-90 tanks built. Neither one of us has the exact numbers.

Regarding the Ossetian War, I cited Der Speigel, which is a mainstream source. The Nation isn't necessarily mainstream, but it's not some obscure source either. Same can be said for the Moscow Defense Brief.

Ahhh yes, Jamestown, the authors of the The Guns of August, a really bad work of fiction written about the Ossetian War. The Airborne Forces were part of the 10,000. Do your most credible of sources actually list specific units that participated? Or are we to assume that the entire 58th Army magically teleported into Georgia. Jamestown Foundation might actually assume that, I certainly wouldn't put it past them. Once again, I said that Georgia had roughly 20,000 regulars and roughly 20,000 reserves. That was true. The Russian Air Force targeted the reserve bases. So either the Russians love hitting empty barracks, or the Russian Air Force actually prevented the reserves from being properly deployed. Here, for instance, is a Georgian Brigade:



Can your sources actually cite a Russian ORBAT with that accuracy? Probably not. And Exiled Online is more credible than Jamestown when it comes to the Ossetian War. Oh, and Mark Ames was there for the The Nation, not Exiled Online. Georgia suffered over 1,100 casualties, or over 11% of the forces that intially engaged. They were quite willing to fight. They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did. But they weren't chickenshits, unlike their president. Oh, and I've already moved on to the T-72s, but please continue to talk about T-64s and T-55s. It's quite amusing.

One of the authors of The Guns of August is affiliated with the Jamestown Foundation. Though I don't think this line of conversation is important, and you probably never read it.

Most of the good troops were in Afghanistan, that's why they were so bad regardless of the dramatic imbalance when it came to air forces.

And coincidentally you've also come upon the correct reason for why the Georgian Military committed war crimes.

They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did.

I don't know why it took you so long to realize that it wasn't some grand ethnic cleansing attempt, but just immoral and really fucking stupid ineptitude.

Human Rights Watch came to that conclusion long ago:

Human Rights Watch's research documented a number of indiscriminate and disproportionate artillery attacks by Georgian forces on South Ossetia and other attacks, which were part of the ground assault. These attacks caused excessive harm to civilians with respect to the military advantage that was to be gained. In particular, Georgian forces made extensive use in civilian areas of multiple-rocket launching systems, known as Grad (Russian for hail), which cannot be targeted with sufficient precision to distinguish between civilian and military objects - thereby causing indiscriminate harm to civilians. The very use of Grad rockets in areas populated by civilians is just one way in which Georgian forces conducted attacks in South Ossetia disregarding the safety of civilians.

Several Ossetian civilians reported looting by Georgian ground forces but otherwise generally did not complain of other abusive treatment during the ground offensive by Georgian troops.[120] Those detained by Georgian forces, however, reported they were ill-treated when taken into custody (see Chapter ).

.....

Madina M. from Khetagurovo said that she was terrified when Georgian troops entered the village, but to her surprise they were "polite" and did not harm her. She said,

"They were going from yard to yard and looking for young guys. They did not know our guys weren't around anymore. I was so frightened … I thought they'd be doing cruel things to women and to the elderly, like during the first war, back in 1992. But they were … polite, really. They kept saying that they had an order not to touch women, children, and old people, and we had nothing to fear from them. They were so young-seemed to be 19 or 20, no more than that. Those who came into our basement even told us, "We don't want to die either."

It would be nice if you realized that the demigod, Mark Ames, has faults as well. Judging by the way you bring up his article about the Russo-Georgian War nearly each month, it seems as if you really really like him. Maybe you should see what other enlightened things he has to say about Georgia: like this gem. A true case of journalistic courage and ethics where Mark Ames talks about shit he doesn't know.

Mark Ames covered the Ossetian War for the Nation. He was there, he saw how the reporting went, so I cite him. Another reason? Because he wrote in English, meaning that I don't have to translate him to post him as a source on NSG. And then you make a string of kindergarten excuses. Shelling populated areas with Dana Howitzers and Grad Missile Launchers is a war crime and it has very little to do with knowledge of city combat. Claiming that "our best were elsewhere, and we didn't know what we were doing" is NOT an excuse for shelling heavily populated areas before your troops went in.

On the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, a sustained Georgian artillery attack struck the town of Tskhinvali. Other movements of the Georgian armed forces targeting Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas were under way, and soon the fighting involved Russian, South Ossetian and Abkhaz military units and armed elements. It did not take long, however, before the Georgian advance into South Ossetia was stopped.

Tskhinval(i) was/is South Ossetia's most populated city. The main military base was north of Tskhinval(i) and south of Java. The military HQ was in Java.

Georgia claims that GRAD were only used against strictly military targets such as South Ossetian artillery in one of the Tskhinvali city districts, whereas OSCE observers and other independent sources confirm the massive shelling of other parts of Tskhinvali as well during the night of 7/8 August 2008, both from multiple launch rocket systems and artillery pieces. Reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also confirm this. This would indicate that during the Georgian offensive on Tskhinvali cluster munitions on whatever scale and GRAD MLRS were both used, amounting to indiscriminate attacks by Georgian forces, owing to the uncontrollable effects of such weaponry and its use in a populated area.

You don't need experience to know that big bombs that make big boom, should not be used in heavily civilian areas. That was one of the reasons why the Russians did not even try taking Tbilisi. Pretending that occurred because Georgians didn't know how to fight city warfare is total fucking bullshit New Werpland, and you know it. That's like someone who never fired a gun going "well, I didn't realize it was going to kill someone if I shot it in a crowded area!" C'mon, that excuse is utterly pathetic. And judging by the lies that Georgia's Government made, also quoted above, they damn well knew of the consequences.

[Novus America]

Most sources put the number of T-72s at arund 25,000. But not all were built in the Soviet Union. And of those that were many were exported. Or destroyed. And Russia did not get all of them.

The orginal T-72 is also obsolete, having only fairly weak rolled steel armor and poor fire control.
Only with the later A and B versions did it get modern armor and fire control.

And the condition of those in storage is unknown. Many are likely able to be returned to service very quickly. Many might also be heavily damaged, even beyond repair.

And while Diesel engines can be left instigate without maintenance a long time, gas turbines, especially the already not very reliable ones on most T-80s cannot be.

Now to get this back to the topic, the conventional strength of the Russian military are often wildly exaggerated. Now I am not saying they are worthless either. They certainly have some solid capabilities. But they are not nearly as powerful as often claimed.

The active Russian Ground Forces (i.e. the guys with tanks) are in fact surprisingly small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

Russia simply is not the Soviet Union.

Also even using PPP (a very flawed metric) Russia has only a small fraction of the ecnomic strength of the EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

Using nominal GDP makes it only much worse for Russia.
And Russia has only one third the population.

The EU therefore if it wanted to could build a military Russia could no possibly be able to match.
Moreover the EU already has an overwhelming advantage in several key areas.

Now Putin knows this. He is not going to attack the EU conventionally.

He is seems to be focused on destroying it from within, backing pro Russia, anti EU parties like the AFD, and exaggerating, even openly lying about the refugee issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

So certainly this AFD result is for Russia a political victory.

Russia cannnot match the EU in economy or population. But it can help it implode.

[New Werpland]

One of the authors of The Guns of August is affiliated with the Jamestown Foundation. Though I don't think this line of conversation is important, and you probably never read it.

Most of the good troops were in Afghanistan, that's why they were so bad regardless of the dramatic imbalance when it came to air forces.

And coincidentally you've also come upon the correct reason for why the Georgian Military committed war crimes.

They just didn't know city warfare as well as the Russians did.

I don't know why it took you so long to realize that it wasn't some grand ethnic cleansing attempt, but just immoral and really fucking stupid ineptitude.

Human Rights Watch came to that conclusion long ago:

It would be nice if you realized that the demigod, Mark Ames, has faults as well. Judging by the way you bring up his article about the Russo-Georgian War nearly each month, it seems as if you really really like him. Maybe you should see what other enlightened things he has to say about Georgia: like this gem. A true case of journalistic courage and ethics where Mark Ames talks about shit he doesn't know.

Mark Ames covered the Ossetian War for the Nation. He was there, he saw how the reporting went, so I cite him. Another reason? Because he wrote in English, meaning that I don't have to translate him to post him as a source on NSG. And then you make a string of kindergarten excuses. Shelling populated areas with Dana Howitzers and Grad Missile Launchers is a war crime and it has very little to do with knowledge of city combat. Claiming that "our best were elsewhere, and we didn't know what we were doing" is NOT an excuse for shelling heavily populated areas before your troops went in.

On the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, a sustained Georgian artillery attack struck the town of Tskhinvali. Other movements of the Georgian armed forces targeting Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas were under way, and soon the fighting involved Russian, South Ossetian and Abkhaz military units and armed elements. It did not take long, however, before the Georgian advance into South Ossetia was stopped.

Tskhinval(i) was/is South Ossetia's most populated city. The main military base was north of Tskhinval(i) and south of Java. The military HQ was in Java.

Georgia claims that GRAD were only used against strictly military targets such as South Ossetian artillery in one of the Tskhinvali city districts, whereas OSCE observers and other independent sources confirm the massive shelling of other parts of Tskhinvali as well during the night of 7/8 August 2008, both from multiple launch rocket systems and artillery pieces. Reports from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also confirm this. This would indicate that during the Georgian offensive on Tskhinvali cluster munitions on whatever scale and GRAD MLRS were both used, amounting to indiscriminate attacks by Georgian forces, owing to the uncontrollable effects of such weaponry and its use in a populated area.

You don't need experience to know that big bombs that make big boom, should not be used in heavily civilian areas. That was one of the reasons why the Russians did not even try taking Tbilisi. Pretending that occurred because Georgians didn't know how to fight city warfare is total fucking bullshit New Werpland, and you know it. That's like someone who never fired a gun going "well, I didn't realize it was going to kill someone if I shot it in a crowded area!" C'mon, that excuse is utterly pathetic. And judging by the lies that Georgia's Government made, also quoted above, they damn well knew of the consequences.

It's not an excuse it's an explanation. Ineptitude does not excuse someone from taking the responsibility for something like this, and I think someone should be punished. The problem here is that you think it was an attempt at ethnic cleansing, which anyone who even knows a little about the situation or Saakashvili's government would know is BS.

If it was ethnic cleansing why was it that Human Rights Watch and the EU Report both were unable to find evidence of Georgian forces deliberately targeting civilians? Why did they say Russian claims of a genocide attempt were completely unfounded? Or as I pointed out before why didn't Georgian soldiers cleanse as they made their way through mostly undefended Ossetian villages on the road to Tskhinvali?

The only evidence you seem to provide for your claim is that they used disproportionate force (not anything particularly representative of an ethnic cleansing attempt), and that the mission was called "clear field."

When it comes to why Saakashvili might have tried to commit ethnic cleansing you just blank and say he was a nationalist. You probably don't know that the rights of minorities (including Ossetians) were reified and expanded under Saakashvili or that his opposition often consisted of ethnic nationalists.

[-Mr Money-]

A Party called the AfD beat the governing Party of Germany in a Regional Election!

Democracy! Shock horror!

[Shofercia]

Most sources put the number of T-72s at arund 25,000. But not all were built in the Soviet Union. And of those that were many were exported. Or destroyed. And Russia did not get all of them.

The orginal T-72 is also obsolete, having only fairly weak rolled steel armor and poor fire control.
Only with the later A and B versions did it get modern armor and fire control.

And the condition of those in storage is unknown. Many are likely able to be returned to service very quickly. Many might also be heavily damaged, even beyond repair.

And while Diesel engines can be left instigate without maintenance a long time, gas turbines, especially the already not very reliable ones on most T-80s cannot be.

Now to get this back to the topic, the conventional strength of the Russian military are often wildly exaggerated. Now I am not saying they are worthless either. They certainly have some solid capabilities. But they are not nearly as powerful as often claimed.

The active Russian Ground Forces (i.e. the guys with tanks) are in fact surprisingly small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

Russia simply is not the Soviet Union.

Also even using PPP (a very flawed metric) Russia has only a small fraction of the ecnomic strength of the EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

Using nominal GDP makes it only much worse for Russia.
And Russia has only one third the population.

The EU therefore if it wanted to could build a military Russia could no possibly be able to match.
Moreover the EU already has an overwhelming advantage in several key areas.

Now Putin knows this. He is not going to attack the EU conventionally.

He is seems to be focused on destroying it from within, backing pro Russia, anti EU parties like the AFD, and exaggerating, even openly lying about the refugee issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

So certainly this AFD result is for Russia a political victory.

Russia cannnot match the EU in economy or population. But it can help it implode.

Yeah, but sources also say that thousands of T-80s and T-90s were built. So it's entirely possible that the current amount of T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s in Russia's possession is about 22,000. Furthermore, it's possible that most of these can be restored should there be a need. But this is a moot point, since, as you said: And the condition of those in storage is unknown. And the numbers are also unknown. And yes, I'm well aware that Russia isn't the USSR.

Personally, I prefer PPP over nominal GDP, because PPP takes local costs into account. Nominal GDP only matters when it comes to net profit. Let's say you have Company A, operating in the US, and Company B, operating in Bagladesh. Company A has a revenue of $250k, but expenses of $240k. Company B has revenue of $50k, but expenses of $20k. Company B is more profitable. The PPP takes vital expenses into account. The money that you pay for the basics, housing, food, healthcare, etc, that's money that you barely touch; you don't save any of it, and you need a place to live, food to eat, medicine, etc. Nominal GDP doesn't do that.

If Putin can make the EU implode... First you go on telling me how not powerful Russia is, then you're saying that weak Russia will make EU implode.

It's not an excuse it's an explanation. Ineptitude does not excuse someone from taking the responsibility for something like this, and I think someone should be punished. The problem here is that you think it was an attempt at ethnic cleansing, which anyone who even knows a little about the situation or Saakashvili's government would know is BS.

If it was ethnic cleansing why was it that Human Rights Watch and the EU Report both were unable to find evidence of Georgian forces deliberately targeting civilians? Why did they say Russian claims of a genocide attempt were completely unfounded? Or as I pointed out before why didn't Georgian soldiers cleanse as they made their way through mostly undefended Ossetian villages on the road to Tskhinvali?

The only evidence you seem to provide for your claim is that they used disproportionate force (not anything particularly representative of an ethnic cleansing attempt), and that the mission was called "clear field."

When it comes to why Saakashvili might have tried to commit ethnic cleansing you just blank and say he was a nationalist. You probably don't know that the rights of minorities (including Ossetians) were reified and expanded under Saakashvili or that his opposition often consisted of ethnic nationalists.

You don't need knowledge of city warfare to know that you shouldn't be using cluster munitions in heavily civilian areas. Cluster munitions are ideal for hitting an opponent's armed forces, while they're moving. Before you attack, the opponent's armed forces aren't going to move to counter. This is something that anyone with a shred of common sense can grasp; claiming "I didn't know that big bombs make big boom and kill civilians" is laughable.

Genocide isn't the same as ethnic cleansing and the claims for ethnic cleansing were not fully analyzed. Genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an entire population. Saakashvili had no qualms with the Ossetians not living in South Ossetia, Adjara, or Abkhazia. However, considering that an attack on a largely civilian city was called "Operation Clear Field", that more than half of the city's population fled while others hid in tunnels, that Dana Howitzers and Grads were used against heavily civilian areas, as Mark Ames observed, that's a war crime, and possibly ethnic cleansing.

What the Times‘s stringer didn’t include was that the “two neighborhoods” he alluded to were Tskhinvali’s main residential district, nicknamed Shanghai because of its population density (it’s where most of the city’s high-rise apartment blocks are located), and the old Jewish Quarter, which was nothing but piles of rubble.

If I'm defending, I'm not going to place my forces in easily targeted high rise buildings in a location that has little tactical value. And it doesn't take any city fighting experience to understand that your opponent isn't going to place his/her soldiers in areas that can be easily targeted. On the other hand, if your goal is to create massive civilian panic, then those targets are ideal.

[San Lumen]

This is what happens when people feel ignored or left out. They turn to far right parties and the out of touch elites in Brussels have the nerve to wonder why. It will not be long before one of them takes a Presidency or a majority in parliament. It wouldn't surprise me if the EU sees it as a illegitimate election or blames the people for voting for them in a free and fair election.

[Imperializt Russia]

Which bit of your arse did you extract this figure from?

DIS ONE! DUHHHHHH! IT'S LIBBBBBERAL DOOO! HUR HUR HUR! SURE HURT MY ASS!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03 ... 40594.html

It's a poll in peacetime of a region that hasn't faced war for seventy years, and not even the risk of war for thirty.
You'd find the numbers change if the situation did.

Europeans don't see a need to fight, because there's nothing to fight for here. There won't be a war to fight.
Even 27% is more of the population than would ever actually serve in even a catastrophic war, and more than the proportion of the UK that did fight in WWI or WWII.

[Novus America]

Most sources put the number of T-72s at arund 25,000. But not all were built in the Soviet Union. And of those that were many were exported. Or destroyed. And Russia did not get all of them.

The orginal T-72 is also obsolete, having only fairly weak rolled steel armor and poor fire control.
Only with the later A and B versions did it get modern armor and fire control.

And the condition of those in storage is unknown. Many are likely able to be returned to service very quickly. Many might also be heavily damaged, even beyond repair.

And while Diesel engines can be left instigate without maintenance a long time, gas turbines, especially the already not very reliable ones on most T-80s cannot be.

Now to get this back to the topic, the conventional strength of the Russian military are often wildly exaggerated. Now I am not saying they are worthless either. They certainly have some solid capabilities. But they are not nearly as powerful as often claimed.

The active Russian Ground Forces (i.e. the guys with tanks) are in fact surprisingly small.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Ground_Forces

Russia simply is not the Soviet Union.

Also even using PPP (a very flawed metric) Russia has only a small fraction of the ecnomic strength of the EU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

Using nominal GDP makes it only much worse for Russia.
And Russia has only one third the population.

The EU therefore if it wanted to could build a military Russia could no possibly be able to match.
Moreover the EU already has an overwhelming advantage in several key areas.

Now Putin knows this. He is not going to attack the EU conventionally.

He is seems to be focused on destroying it from within, backing pro Russia, anti EU parties like the AFD, and exaggerating, even openly lying about the refugee issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_d ... ion_EN.svg

So certainly this AFD result is for Russia a political victory.

Russia cannnot match the EU in economy or population. But it can help it implode.

Yeah, but sources also say that thousands of T-80s and T-90s were built. So it's entirely possible that the current amount of T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s in Russia's possession is about 22,000. Furthermore, it's possible that most of these can be restored should there be a need. But this is a moot point, since, as you said: And the condition of those in storage is unknown. And the numbers are also unknown. And yes, I'm well aware that Russia isn't the USSR.

Personally, I prefer PPP over nominal GDP, because PPP takes local costs into account. Nominal GDP only matters when it comes to net profit. Let's say you have Company A, operating in the US, and Company B, operating in Bagladesh. Company A has a revenue of $250k, but expenses of $240k. Company B has revenue of $50k, but expenses of $20k. Company B is more profitable. The PPP takes vital expenses into account. The money that you pay for the basics, housing, food, healthcare, etc, that's money that you barely touch; you don't save any of it, and you need a place to live, food to eat, medicine, etc. Nominal GDP doesn't do that.

If Putin can make the EU implode... First you go on telling me how not powerful Russia is, then you're saying that weak Russia will make EU implode.

It's not an excuse it's an explanation. Ineptitude does not excuse someone from taking the responsibility for something like this, and I think someone should be punished. The problem here is that you think it was an attempt at ethnic cleansing, which anyone who even knows a little about the situation or Saakashvili's government would know is BS.

If it was ethnic cleansing why was it that Human Rights Watch and the EU Report both were unable to find evidence of Georgian forces deliberately targeting civilians? Why did they say Russian claims of a genocide attempt were completely unfounded? Or as I pointed out before why didn't Georgian soldiers cleanse as they made their way through mostly undefended Ossetian villages on the road to Tskhinvali?

The only evidence you seem to provide for your claim is that they used disproportionate force (not anything particularly representative of an ethnic cleansing attempt), and that the mission was called "clear field."

When it comes to why Saakashvili might have tried to commit ethnic cleansing you just blank and say he was a nationalist. You probably don't know that the rights of minorities (including Ossetians) were reified and expanded under Saakashvili or that his opposition often consisted of ethnic nationalists.

You don't need knowledge of city warfare to know that you shouldn't be using cluster munitions in heavily civilian areas. Cluster munitions are ideal for hitting an opponent's armed forces, while they're moving. Before you attack, the opponent's armed forces aren't going to move to counter. This is something that anyone with a shred of common sense can grasp; claiming "I didn't know that big bombs make big boom and kill civilians" is laughable.

Genocide isn't the same as ethnic cleansing and the claims for ethnic cleansing were not fully analyzed. Genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, an entire population. Saakashvili had no qualms with the Ossetians not living in South Ossetia, Adjara, or Abkhazia. However, considering that an attack on a largely civilian city was called "Operation Clear Field", that more than half of the city's population fled while others hid in tunnels, that Dana Howitzers and Grads were used against heavily civilian areas, as Mark Ames observed, that's a war crime, and possibly ethnic cleansing.

What the Times‘s stringer didn’t include was that the “two neighborhoods” he alluded to were Tskhinvali’s main residential district, nicknamed Shanghai because of its population density (it’s where most of the city’s high-rise apartment blocks are located), and the old Jewish Quarter, which was nothing but piles of rubble.

If I'm defending, I'm not going to place my forces in easily targeted high rise buildings in a location that has little tactical value. And it doesn't take any city fighting experience to understand that your opponent isn't going to place his/her soldiers in areas that can be easily targeted. On the other hand, if your goal is to create massive civilian panic, then those targets are ideal.

Well true, we do not know exactly how many are in tank graveyards and it is a moot point anyway. Russia's active ground forces are not particularly large, that much we do know.

PPP does NOT take housing costs into acount, actually. One of its many flaws.
But the graph I posted was PPP. Even by PPP Russia's GDP is not impressive, and is a tiny fraction of the EU. That is just a fact.

I never said Russia is powerless. Just that its conventional military strength has been wildly exaggerated. Saying something is exagerated does not mean it is weak. There is a middle ground between weak and a superpower. If you have a million dollars and claim to have 10 million you have wildly exegerated. That does not mean you are poor. Just that you claiming to have more than you actually do.

And again I said conventional military ability. Russia does not have the conventional military ability to destroy the EU.

Nor can Russia cause the EU to implode on its own. I never said it could. I said it can help the anti EU parties do it. Help does not mean doing all the work. Or doing it on your own. If invest 90k, and you add 10k. You have definitely helped me. But not done it on your own.

Russia does have very powerful propaganda aparatus to help the anti EU parties. This is NOT a conventional military capability. It is a powerful UNCOVENTIONAL capability.

[Alsheb]

It is excellent that the AfD beat Merkel in her own so called "home region", because it is time for her to wake up that 1.1 million refugees taken by Germany is not doing anything good for Germans themselves. Besides, those who say that they are kind hearted and condemn nationalists for protecting their own interests instead of helping others, I want to ask, will you let random refugees sleep in your family home out of kindness?

Did Merkel let "random refugees sleep in family homes"? No. So curb the exaggerated nonsense, please.