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Comment by boc | Hacker News Reader

The US is "in love with Shock and Awe" because it worked extremely well. Russia doesn't have the air power to pull it off, which is why they are running a version of Deep War, but without a second echelon to prevent their supply lines from getting picked off.

In reality it appears that Russia had a big problem with "ghost units" and rapidly tried to fill their invasion force with conscripts in the weeks before the invasion began. It's why we're seeing so many ill-equipped soldiers and awful tactics where tanks/APCs are driving solo through fields.

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Russia absolutely has the air power to pull it off, you clearly haven't seen Syria.

My guess is that they have, correctly, anticipated that mass casualties of white civilians would play very badly internationally and domestically.

e: I'm downvoted.. for what? It's obvious that the ethnicity of the victim matters for both domestic and international perception, all you need to do is look at a bit of media coverage of reporters bemoaning that this is happening to "blue eyed, blond haired" people or in the "civilized world." There is a different standard for what sort of casualties are considered acceptable.

It seems like you're trying to shoe-horn in an entirely different point? How does maintaining air supremacy as a military tactic relate to mass casualties?

You can't destroy anti-aircraft guns located in civilian areas without killing civilians.

I downvoted you because this line of logic is deployed, I believe, by race obsessed westerners who are privately fuming that a shooting war has sidelined their culture war for a few weeks. "Don't forget about me and the things I care about!"

Just because a talking head or two makes those claims does not mean it is all of the sudden the truth. If Russia was worried about the looks of white civilian casualties, they wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. By the way, how many news reporters didn't make the claim that people only care about this because blue eyed/blonde haired people are involved?

Regardless of race, plenty of people have brought up that this is about as popular to many Russians as the US invading Canada would be.

I agree, but that is a completely different point than "The western world only cares about this conflict because the victims have blue eyes and blonde hair"

But if you compare the outrage about what was happening in Syria (or Iraq or Afghanistan) to the outrage now, we clearly are at a very different level. It can't be because the Russian are acting so much more ruthlessly now.

If you have a theory to explain a set of facts, pointing to the set of facts as an implicit justification for your theory does not logically follow.

Maybe Westerners care more about the Ukrainian situation because Ukraine was by and large a peaceful, lawful country until the war started. Do you think the western response would have been a little different if there was a pre-existing civil war in Ukraine, and Russia stepped in to try to turn the tide for one of the factions?

I don't know how to say this nicely, but you seem not to have been paying attention. There was a pre-existing war happening. Russia annexed the Krim in 2014 and there have been skirmishes in the separatists areas ever since.

Also do tell what was the existing civil war in Iraq?

The guardian had an article about some of the comments made by journalist and politicians and there is no other way then to say they are racist.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/02/civili...

How was the conflict between Ukraine and Russia playing out before 2 weeks ago? How was the conflict in Syria before US/Russia involvement? Would you call them comparable?

If Westerners only care about blonde hair blue eyed people, why did no one care about the Ukrainian war before 2 weeks ago?

Your link has, I think, 4 people who make a claim about why the West cares about the war. Is there a reason you put so much weight on those 4 people, but not on the thousands of other journalists covering the situation who aren't making those claims? Did you know a single one of those people before hearing their coverage of the war?

Worked well to what end exactly? They decimated the North Korean population and made an eternal enemy out of them. They fought insurgents for 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I assume that Russia doesn't want the same result in a neighbouring country.

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