‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training | Hacker News Reader

‘I want to protect my family’: Polish civilians flock to army training

ft.com

69 pointschewz123 comments

Summary: It was just a 1-day "training" session, for a very small number of civilians. In context - obviously a PR exercise / trial balloon / warm-up for larger & more serious things. (Poland's government is, ah, kinda obviously scrambling to improve the country's capacity for self-defense.)

The important aspect here is that it previously criticised for shifting resources from a career military.

A 300k active service military would be of course nothing to scoff at, especially with a lot of long range weapons.

But what we see in Ukraine is they had biggest army in Europe, and they also wanted to go mostly professional, but their core force, the most well trained soldier took an enormous hit, and is melting away.

Soldiers whom they spent years preparing are still humans, and are dying to artillery, air strikes, and zerg rushes of Russian "disposables" (draftees, Wanger mercenaries, and LPR/DPR levy.) These highly trained soldiers are not trading their lives meaningfully when they sit in trenches, and can't attack because the frontline is so stretched out, and manpower is drained for menial tasks.

This is all shows that you can't fight something like Russia with professional army only if you are a country of only 44m people.

A degree of differentiation in between career warriors who will spend a decade or more in the military vs. somebody who will go for a 2-3 year contract, and reservists with minimal training is absolutely essential.

Israel maintains a 1 to 3 split in between professional soldiers, and the good part of their reserve (people who regularly train, fit, and had good scores in tests.) The ratio is way bigger on the paper though.

It is reasonable to have a draft for self-defense (like Israel).

We now see that Russia has difficulties getting draftees to fight abroad, so it is hard to imagine that Poland is at any particular risk right now.

What sort of difficulties those might be? If Russia overcomes those difficulties, should Poland get worried?

baybal's comment is now dead, I'm not sure why. It has some grammar mistakes, but I've seen much worse comments on Hacker News get upvoted. I think baybal was trying to make the point that Ukraine needs a large volunteer force to stay in this war? This sentence:

"This is all shows that you can't fight something like Russia with professional army only if you are a country of only 44m people."

is correct, if the implication is something like "Only with a mass draft can a nation of 44 million fight against a nation 143 million people."

I think we all understand that the situation in Ukraine is very difficult right now.

Population is not that different and the motivation and defensive advantage the Ukrainians have, should even it out at least a bit.

But... When you look at GDP it is $1,578B[0] vs $112B[1] - e.g. more than 12x. And this is with an extremely heavily sanctioned Russia. In terms of industrial manufacturing and technologies, the difference is even more shocking.

That's why this full on fight is bound to bring only suffering, misery and an even greater defeat. Real shame though - I have been to Uzhhorod and Lvov and those are great places with great people. Their leaders though...

0. https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/ukraine-gdp/

1. https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/russia-gdp/

The GDP difference is not so big is you consider that they are not fighting Ukraine alone, but also all the countries that believe that they are in the "to be invaded" list [1]. So money/weapons/training flow, but not soldiers. It's good deal for Ukraine because they get money they need for the defense and it's a good deal for the other country because they prefer that the war is fight elsewhere.

[1] And a few more countries with geopolitical motivations.

Ukraine has almost 50 million inhabitants and I estimate about 15 million males which are eligible for military duty. The problem isn't recruits, its training and arming them in the field. You need ammunition, clothes, tents, food, water, fuel, transportation and sanitation to keep them in top condition.

Ukraine cannot switch over to a wartime economy, since that would quickly ruin the country. Only a small percentage of Ukrainian males are currently under arms (I estimate 300.000 or less).

Ukraine currently has the backing of most Western nations, but it's likely support for the war sag if prices and economic conditions worsen in the U.S. and Europe.

I can’t imagine Ukraine has much of an economy left. It doesn’t really need one though because other countries are paying for the war effort

Actually, they have ~40M (even less now) out of which ~10M are people who consider themselves Russians and ~15M who speak Russian.

At best they have some 8M males between 18-54 for military duty who would actually fight for Ukraine. Still a lot but twice less than what you posted.

Baybal is a complex case (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29654137, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190265), and his comments are always dead on arrival. That is, they weren't dead because of the content of that particular comment, but because he has a history with the site of not always following the rules. Whether the fault is with him or with the rules is up for debate, but the current compromise is that all his comments start out dead. These comments on this thread seemed useful and insightful, so I vouched for them to make them visible. Presumably others did the same.

Ukraine is already on the 7th or 8th wave of mobilisation for their men, they're long past the stage of "we're only going to rely on our professional soldiers".

I believe that is what Baybal was trying to say, though perhaps they could have phrased it more clearly.

If anyone is interested in some speculative explorations of scenarios, to game out the end of the Russia-Ukraine war, then you might be interested in "If a Western nation joins the fighting in Ukraine, what will happen?"

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/if-a-western-nation-joins-t...

Really pointless. Poland has no oil and gas. In a conventional war that drag say 5 years, most people there will die of sickness and starvation rather than bullets kr shrapnels. And today as can be seen from Ukraine, we dont fight conventional war. It will be more like surgical drone strike. And once it escalate to tacticle nukes or dirty bombs, civilians rag-tag defenses will just be bodybag counts for surviving historians. It is better they focus on diplomacy and elect responsible and smart people like those in Hungary, Serbia and Italy now. Try to avoid weak and fumbling leaders like those in USA, UK, Germans and Finlands. Take a look at Singapore where vast majority of their leaders (their congress and their public admins) have doctorate and masters. A single diplomatic advisor from Singapore to Ukraine probably would be way more effective than all USA HIMARs. Historical Polish armies tend to lose in vast majority of wars...with an occasional divine-like wins those of medieval Hussars. Hoping for divine wins are not a good long-term defence strategy.

Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention: roll into all of the old warsaw pact countries.

Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers.

> Poland has absolutely 0 natural geographical barriers.

Except for Baltic Sea to the North, Mountains to the South, Oder River to the West and Bug River to the East...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Poland

Neither the sea nor mountains work from Kaliningrad. The border with Belarus is pretty good terrain with a fair amount of roads too.

Kalinigrad and Central Poland are separated by maze of lakes, forrest and marshes 100 km in-depth...Not exactly a tank country - Masuria had always been considered a major strategic obstacle..

Same goes for Polish-Byelorussia border - large forrests, rolling hills...

Each Russian staff officer worth his salt knows details of this terrain from studying history - 1793, 1809, 1831, 1914, 1920, 1941, 1944... And impassable has different definition in XXI century then in 1812... But still...it is a terrain well suited for defense...

Situation is somewhat similar here in Lithuania. Unfortunately what I learned studying our post-WW2 resistance, it's not as obstacle as it was back then. Melioration is probably #1. Marshes are anti-tank canals, with bridges supporting tractors and trucks. Then greatly improved road network. Especially access roads for farms, forest service and so on. Impenetrable marshes and forests of 1940s where some cells held out for a decade are now zig-zagged with roads that support trucks overloaded with timber. Farms have fascinating access roads too. And Polish farms seem to have even better access roads, at least what I saw while cycling down there.

Sure, it's not flatland where you can roll by tanks anywhere. But so was Ukraine in february when fields were sinkholes. And it's nowhere close to proper mountains. Or marshes of 100 years ago.

I have read in Northern Crusades [1] that in XII/XIII century forrests separating Prussia from Lithuania/Mazovia had been truly impassable (except for raiding parties - raizes) and the only campaining had been possible along large rivers. Lituanians had it easier because they had been bringing siedge equipment and canons downstream. So there is some change although meassured in centuries :)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Northern-Crusades-Second-Eric-Christi...

Yes. But the huuuuge forests of XII century were converted into arable land in Commonwealth times. Export timber, then grow grain in place of the old forest and export it... And then unexpected partition happens and you can't hide in the forest anymore :/

That's a ludicrous statement.

Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions and even if he had the poor performance of his armed forces will make him think twice before attacking NATO countries.

After the Cold War the U.S. searched the Soviet archives for evidence of plans to attack NATO, but all these turned up nothing. The Soviet Union never had the intention to attack Western Europe and all their posturing was merely to make us believe they were stronger than they actually were.

Yes, they'd won the Second World War, but only at enormous human cost. For every German soldier killed at least 5 Soviet soldiers lost their lives.

> Putin clearly stated he has no such intentions

If Putin told me the sky was blue, I'd go outside and check. To describe Putin's relationship with the truth as "tenuous" would be far more generous than he deserves.

For all his faults and crimes I do believe he's sincere on this. He merely wants us to keep out of "his" backyard. Read: former Soviet states are off-limits for NATO and EU membership.

We've been provoking him by offering (and sometimes even bribing and prodding) former Soviet states to become NATO members.

I'm no Putin fan, but I do believe he has a point here.

But accepting that would just mean that e.g. Poland couldn't join the EU and would have to remain, even forced by the West to not make Putin sad, a Russian vassal state.

Who can accept such a world order, where a tier 2 power holds everyone hostage and demands to be treated as an empire? Imagine if the British expected to still control all of the empire they once had and demanded the US, Russia and China stop India from going its own way.

If Russia is willing to fight a war over Ukraine, then you've got to ask yourself how important is Ukraine to us? Keeping in mind that this war could easily spiral out of control and into a nuclear Holocaust, killing approximately 5 billion (!!) people (this estimate was only recently computed, I think I even read about it on HN).

For me the answer is "Not very." I hope the Ukrainians win, but if they don't I won't lose any sleep over it. All this talk that this war being an existential threat to the West wold and that we must win it at all cost is simply preposterous.

> For me the answer is "Not very."

Sure, I understand that response. Tomorrow the question will be "how important is Poland to us, really?", and the day after that it will be asked about Germany and France. And it's quite reasonable to always answer "well, I don't really care about country X so much that I'm willing to kill 5bn people over its independence".

But you will either end up with the whole world living as Russia's slaves, or you'll end up with a war when someone says "no, I'm not okay with that". Only that you'll have given Russia a lot of infrastructure to steal and re-use when that day finally comes.

> For all his faults and crimes I do believe he's sincere on this. He merely wants us to keep out of "his" backyard.

Putin gave a three hour speech detailing precisely why he invaded, which is an old Russian claim that can be summed up with, the Ukrainians aren't a real people. The way he has fought this war (e.g. filtration camps) supports those the contents that speech.

If Putin's goal was to prevent Ukraine from joinig NATO, he got that done in 2014 after annexing Crimea. It would have been impossible for Ukraine to join NATO due to it's ongoing border dispute with the Russians. Territorial disputes are a virtual non-stater according to NATO application policies. Zelensky even offered to never join NATO, yet Putin attacked all the same. When speaking about the conquests of Peter the Great, Putin said, "It seems it has fallen to us, too, to reclaim and strengthen,", where he was clearly referring to Ukraine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61767191

Can I ask you to read the actual treaty [0] and point where exactly "Territorial disputes are a virtual non-stater according to NATO application policies"?

And what about Cyprus?

[0] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...

Sure, the text is here:

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24733.htm

"Prospective members will have to have:

    Demonstrated a commitment to and respect for OSCE norms and principles, including the resolution of ethnic disputes, external territorial disputes including irredentist claims or internal jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means"

I first heard, the argument put forth General Patreaus. He has mentioned it several times on various television programs when asked what he thought about claims that Russia invaded to keep Ukraine out of NATO. That motivated me to look up the passage.

I'm not certaint what you mean about Cypress? It has not applied for NATO membership.

Edit: the ideas behind the above quote seems likely to be based on the langjage in Article 1 of the NATO Charter.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...

"Article 1

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

> commitment

'commitment' and a 'lack of' are a different things. I don't see 'should not have any territorial disputes'

> It has not applied for NATO membership.

*yawn* and what about the other half of the island?

There isn't any debate that this is NATO's policy. It is frequently discussed during the application process for many nations. However, the application process itself is even more explicit, since you still seem skeptical (despite what numerous foreign policy, military, political scientists indicate).

"Aspirants would also be expected: ... to settle ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes including irredentist claims or internal jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles and to pursue good neighbourly relations;"

I assume you know the difference between MUST, SHALL and MAY.

> Watching Russian convoys sport the Soviet flag pretty much signals their intention:

It was this flag [1], not any Soviet flag. Which, in this context, makes a lot of sense, as the current government in Ukraine tries to extricate itself as much as possible from them actually having been on the good side during WW2 (with the well-known exceptions), i.e. on Russia's side . I used to know a person closed to me who had fought on the wrong side, around the same parts where this war now takes place (Odessa, Crimea, all the way to the Don river), so I'm not commenting about this from half a world away. And no, it was not "obvious" that that was Russia's intention.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner_(Soviet_Union)

> the good side during WW2, i.e. on Russia's side (with the well-known exceptions)

There are some pretty fucking big exceptions there, my friend. The USSR was perfectly content to cooperate with Nazi Germany for their own benefit until they got backstabbed.

You don't know history [0][1]. Stalin was absolutely not content to cooperate with Nazi Germany as Stalin offered 1M soldiers to be sent to border with Germany if France and Britain agreed on anti-Nazi alliance. They didn't even respond. Unfortunately this only came out in 2000' when classified documents came out and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact is the only thing people remember. Time to update your knowledge.

Of course British and French were wary of communist Soviet Union but Stalin did offer it to Allies first. That's a historical fact. Once they didn't respond he tried to prevent and postpone the war with Germany with a well known Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact because documents also show that Stalin was perfectly aware that Germans will attack no matter what.

The above doesn't negate Stalin's imperialistic ambitions towards Poland.

[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hi... [1]https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...

Well Putin can't manage to cross the Dnipro, so I don't think Poland needs to worry too much unless he starts to pop off nukes.

What scenario are they training for exactly? Highly unlikely Russian/Belarus army would be able to get anywhere near Polish border let alone cross it. And if nuclear war is their concern how is such training going to help? Their concern is understandable given history but very misplaced. And their nationalist politicians benefit greatly from rallying around the flag (much like Russia hmm).

As a Pole living in Poland and very much not a fan of the current government, I still greatly appreciate the preparations, regardless of the obvious propaganda value.

Looks like the Finns and the Swedes are thinking along the same lines. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Finland and Sweden are not yet part of NATO. The risk is far more for them than Poland.

Probably now it is the same given the security assurances provided to Finland/Sweden by US/UK during NATO accession process.

Finland was not a member of NATO and was previously viewed as a neutral country during cold war. Their prioritisation of territorial defence went hand in hand with this and was in context of having fought wars with Russia in modern period. It's not really comparable to Poland's situation which was already in NATO prior to this. A nuclear war is more likely than a territorial invasion of Poland. If they want to prepare for war they should base their planning on likely scenarios. Unless it's just politics.

Poland borders Russia and Belarus so I don't really see the point you are trying to make. Si vis pacem, para bellum.

If Russia was going to invade another country he would presumably not choose one that is in NATO.

It's not in the realm of impossible. NATO isn't invincible and history shows that alliances break apart.

I'm not suggesting that NATO will always exist. I am just saying if Putin was going to attack a country he likely wouldn't go after a country that has the most powerful military alliance backing it. There are other countries that don't have that sort of backing. I don't think Putin believed the west would support Ukraine which is why he chose it.

I firmly believe that, had Ukraine collapsed within days of the invasion as Russia expected, they’d be in a NATO country by now. I think Putin expected NATO to turn out to be a paper tiger when it came to the Baltics, at least.

Given the reports that Trump planned to drop out of NATO in his second term, and given the ongoing tensions within Europe, it’s not unreasonable to think Russia could get away with gradual encroachment.

You are scaremongering. I mean Moldova maybe.

There is no way in hell Russia would purposefully trigger art 5.

They may talk the talk for their internal audience but although they may show signs of unexpected incompetence they are not stupid.

An internal coup would be more likely than going full out Leeroy Jenkins WW3.

"There is no way in hell Russia would purposefully trigger art 5" is not what the governments of the Baltic states believe.

Not only governments. I’d say a good portion of our population wouldn’t bet their lives on this.

Why not?

Looking back at the beginning of war, had Ukraine fell in days… I don’t see West actively trying to stop Russia in Baltics and Poland. Russians would have had super high morale while West would have been in 100% panic mode trying to keep business as usual going. Tiny annoyances in the middle be damned.

> Why not?

https://i.imgur.com/rKNtPSt.png

If West would have political will to deploy.

To not act would be to dissolve the whole purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty.

There are no shortage of politicians in NATO countries who feel it should be disbanded. And others who would argue NATO could defend Western Europe even if it abandoned the rest of the continent.

...wait until people get tired and cold and things get expensive and nato will very quickly fall apart. If my country offered training i would take it - I'm about a 16hr drive from the actual front lines. Thats really close...meanwhile soccer players are still on €5k+ a week, us footballers still on their millions. I fear the russians will win this as apathy and 'hardships' continue - the vast majority of people i talk to really don't give a fuck - especially when you go through russias brutal invasions. "But the Americans did just as bad" is a common reply: yes, i agree but now the war is coming this way...and a lot of people don't quite get the implications on their lives. We're all too darn comfortable at the moment.

> ...wait until people get tired and cold and things get expensive and nato will very quickly fall apart

This is not far from truth, and not far from actually happening. Politicians (especially german) prioretizing ukraine over their own countries, possibility of actually UK destroying the nordstreams, people getting cold and unable to afford adequate heating, industries (already) closing down, a lot of protests (already happening) and mainsteam politicians pretty much playing the same record (saying the same thing)...

what do they/we (europeans) expect to happen? If the mainstream left and right are doing the same, the only way to change the current situation is to find an "alternative"... back in the '30s, for germans, it was that austrian painter dude, and we all know how that ended, both for ze germans and for the rest of europe... (and me, living in a nearby slavic country, really don't want history to repeat itself).

> Si vis pacem, para bellum.

We, Romania, had not fought the Russians in centuries until 1941, we did quite all-right. On the other hand the Polish did fight the Russians for centuries before that, they got their statehood obliterated as a result. Romania and Poland have long been historical neighbours of the Tsarist Empire/USSR.

Russia had a force for 240 to 260 thousand stationed across the border with Ukraine at the eve of February 24. They are a highly mechanised force, with more artillery firepower than of any NATO military except Turkey, and Greece.

It was only because Ukraine was uniquely prepared to give Russia a symmetric response using a lot of raw firepower, they managed to withstand their first attack wave.

If that force of 250 thousands would have rolled into Europe instead, you would've been fucked. Do you realise that?

They would have lost their air superiority in a day or two. We have at least 200 immediately available meteor, and they have 13 planes on which those wouldn't be fully effective (basically the NEZ would be less than 60km for their Su57. Maybe.) We also have hundreds of MICA NG, and tbh, even our old MICA would be enough for most of Russian aircraft.

And I'm not even talking about US missiles, who are probably better than MICA.

Without air support, I don't see how you invade Poland and cross rivers.

Russia has world's biggest park of SAM systems.

Even if the combined NATO force would've sent all planes it had in Europe, it would not be physically enough to destroy 39000 pieces of armour, and vehicles.

Only land warfare would've been able to stall this iron ball before it overran airbases.

At least the training will help their emotional state - to feel prepared, ready and confident that they'll have all options at their disposal in the event of an invasion is not without utility. Plus, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the Ukrainian civilians effective resistance shows how even untrained civilians can be an asset, with the implication that they could have been even more effective with some training.

The risk, IMHO, is that you'll get folks doing a day or two of training thinking that makes them experienced combat troops. Overconfidence will certainly hurt you in a real conflict. (The same applies to those who think playing Counter-Strike counts as combat experience).

Unless they are a little kid or machismo simpleton, I don't think anyone who's done a couple days of a "noob basics for tender civilians" training is gonna mistake themselves for an experienced soldier. Especially not when they're exposed to plenty of "real" coverage of a real war, right next door.

I didn't think any sane person would hail a draft-dodger who cheated on his wives and declared bankruptcy 5 times would be hailed as a patriot, a man of God, and a business genius. And yet here we are.

Strong military means people don’t get funny ideas like invading. Weakness means your leaning a new anthem.

Is it possible to get a "[Paywall]" indicator on links in HN?

FT is merciless, everything seems to be behind the paywall.

One way I found I could read FT was to search the article name in Google and the link actually takes you to the full article. Not sure if a bug or feature that works for everyone though

It is a feature, WSJ used to do this for a while. At one point, the article links they posted on Facebook would also be paywall-free.

Non-paywall link available?

https://archive.ph/uZa0n

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2...

Not common among white collar friends. Many people I talked with are more likely to run than defend the country which day by day is ruined by conservative and corrupted politicians

I guess people learn from history, and Polish history teaches sad lesson that Poland seems to be a good candidate for another WWII experience where there are no victorious... To Polish politicians I would have one thing to say, send your kids to fight and do not push whole country to the war nobody wants.

No one pushes for anything agressive in Poland - the only narrative is that we and baltics should be ready to defend ourselves.

Run where?

So your white collar friends are going to sit and enjoy life while the good times roll but flee the second hard times come? If I had a friend that only came over for a BBQ and couldn't be bothered to help me in a time of need, that isn't a friend...

Sounds like there are deeper issues than "conservative" politics in the nation.

Not having any relation to Poland, I perfectly understand them. You only get one life, and many of us have other priorities (like their family's well-being) other than being torn to pieces under artillery fire because the corrupted politicians preferred to look the other way and feed the monster, while ignoring so many omens over the past 20+ years.

Here in East politicians did a pretty good job to prepare for the monster. Unfortunately some businesses did feed it. But that’s a drop in a bucket compared to West monster-building.

Kinda sucks to run away to those who did feed the monster who ate your country that did try to stop it.

> So your white collar friends are going to sit and enjoy life while the good times roll but flee the second hard times come.

Seems reasonable. Why would anyone want to spend their last moments bleeding out from avoidable violence?

> If I had a friend that only came over for a BBQ and couldn't be bothered to help me in a time of need, that isn't a friend

For many people the modern relation with the state can be mediated through nationalistic fervor or through comparison of services provided. You seem to see it through the former, so you'll need to exercise some empathy to see the latter.

As one of those white collars in Poland, I think some of that hesitancy against defending your country is because current ruling party seems very anti-intellectual and it seems like a lot of country supports them, so intellectuals think "If they wan't tnis, let them have it with all the consequences". Me: I'm preparing to defend my country, but it's no use if I'm just sent to meat grinder by incompetent politician-ass-kissing generals.

> ...but flee the second hard times come?

For the US and most of the rest of the world, when the 0.01% families are fighting, dying in droves, and seeing their wealth, bodies, minds and souls shattered along with the rest of us, sure I'll consider defending my home even though that happens to temporarily align with their interests [1] [2] [3].

But until then, the elite bought it, the elite broke it, the elite are welcome to defend it. Don't include me in an armed forces that only ever enforces elite demands when I empirically, functionally have not had a proportionally effective political voice my entire voting life. Not my monkey, not my circus.

[1] https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html

[2] https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2...

[3] https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-...

I would not call people who rule (current nor previous) "elite". Elites were mass murdered during WWII and later during communism, people who rule now have nothing to do with elites.

Leaving out these semantics, choosing which side to join in a war in this modern age is the wrong question to ask. Wars have overwhelmingly historically benefited only the leaders of a nation. Look at how veterans around the world are treated, the war's "benefits" even in the "victor" nation most certainly did not accrue to them in proportion to the risks they undertook.

Unless you are in the leadership, the risk reward calculus for joining a war is almost always tilted greatly against your individual favor. The greater good reward has to be sufficiently compelling to functionally throw away my life in full knowledge leadership will benefit by far more proportionally than I will. That's why I'm grateful there are others with a far lower bar willing to go serve. They are better souls than mine.

I want to see wars invert the sacrifices. When war is launched, leadership, their families and their closest associates and families are the first to die. Those on the "front lines" are the last to die. When the decision to go to war is made, I want the decision to be instantly up close and viscerally personal for the decision makers.

Agree with everything you say. I mentioned WWII because during WWII Polish elites were systematically slaughtered by both invaders (Nazi Germans and Soviet Russia) - example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion, but also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre act of mass murdering of Polish officers who were mostly coming from Polish elites...

I have very similar thoughts about wars, I believe the mainstream narratives are only sliding on the surface of real underlying reasons behind wars.

hm... so by that logic, is Zelensky one of the most "corrupt and conservative" politician out there?

Well, Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe after Russia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine

But it's never just a single leader like "Zelensky" it's the whole system and a big group of people. But at least Zelensky is trying to fight corruption by restoring the anti-corruption laws and planning other reforms because that's some of the conditions to get more money from the west. But of course now the war complicates things even more...

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics-2/zelensky-plans-a...

From what? Russia is not planning to invade the EU.

Whoa did you just deny a CIA narrative?

I'm daring like that.

It depends which corridor you are standing, there are many who believe Russia is about to send their troops to invade Poland. Reality to many is still what is told on TV, and TV in Poland is far from being objective or promoting proper public debate, they instead push narratives that increase emotions..

they instead push narratives that increase emotions

Isn’t this the default mode of operation for the media? Are there any countries (Nordic?) where most of the media isn’t corrupt, fear mongering, clickbaity etc?

"Push narratives that increase emotions" instead of "objective or promoting proper public debate"

this is absolutely what I see in the USA .. all year

At least officially. But then again, they officially also didn't plan to conquer Kiev or exterminate Ukrainians.

There's a reason why Russia's neighbors are suddenly eager to join NATO or increase military readiness.

Exterminate Ukrainians? How much of NATO Kool aid do people drink?

Russia just wanted to remove the puppet installed by US and install their own puppet

Oh you know. It always has to be some kind of a fundamentalist end-of-the-world vague exultant scenario, or it just wouldn't be stimulating enough.

But we knew since more than 8 years ago that Russia's hand would be forced when it comes to Ukraine. You can't say the same about Poland or any other country in the EU for that matter.

Sure you can, and they will, once they feel ready for the next war to expand their empire after you've given them Ukraine.

Appeasing expansionist fascists never works. Europeans had started to forget that lesson (Western Europe more so than Eastern Europe, whose memory was much fresher), but they're rapidly relearning it.

This is demonstrably wrong: Finland appeased Stalin in the Winter War, gave up small territories and preserved the rest of its territorial integrity until today.

> created: 6 minutes ago

Meh, guess HN needs additional rules against throwaway spam.

Finland gave Stalin a bloody nose in the Winter War, and then negotiated a peace treaty. That's not what appeasement is, that's warfare, that's why it's called the Winter War, not the Winter Appeasement.

Appeasement is the idea that you let the criminals take over your neighbors house and hope they won't want to take over your house next.

This is stupid. Clearly, someone decided to call it "appeasement" just to be snarky and it just sticked. What is the purpose of playing dumb and arguing semantics of a purposly snarky choice of words?

> Clearly, someone decided to call it "appeasement" just to be snarky and it just sticked.

What? Nobody, besides this sockpuppet, called the Winter War "appeasement" because it would be fundamentally wrong to do so.

If someone calls a fire a flood and demands you build better drainage solutions to stop the fire, you don't argue the merit of drainage solutions for water, you tell them that a fire isn't a flood.

What's with the "let's just make up random bullshit and pretend it makes sense" approach?

Unfortunately you cannot read and seem enamored with your own comments. See the WaPo link above, which uses "appeasement" in exactly this sense.

I would agree that technically the use is wrong, but that's the climate we live in.

Why are you creating a new account every hour instead of using your main?

And please read the headline, it talks about Musk wanting to go for appeasement. Musk isn't Ukraine, he isn't even in Ukraine. That's exactly what appeasement is: Musk wants Ukraine to give up lands so Russia is satisfied. It's exactly what they thought when the Third Reich was invading its neighbors: "they haven't attacked us, so maybe we can stay out of the conflict if we just accept that they invade their neighbors". Russia 2022 and Germany in the 1930s even use the same language to argue for their claims.

That's something completely different than suggesting that negotiating with an invading army, and giving them what they want, is appeasement. Which is nonsense.

Finland lost the Winter War, but did give the USSR a bloody nose doing so. It then attacked the USSR the next war when another big bully did (this is the Continuation War), and withdrew from that war only when said big bully was itself flailing. Then it was compelled to accept a degree of vassalage from the USSR that the country literally gives its name to--Finlandization.

Hardly appeasement at all.

Actually, in contemporary parlance it would be appeasement. Ukraine gave Russia a bloody nose, and giving up territories or even negotiating as suggested by Musk is called "appeasement":

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/12/musk-tw...

"Musk appeasement of Putin and China stokes fears of new Twitter policies"

Since the beginning of the war, there are literally hundreds of similar examples. Not calling it appeasement would earn you the title of "Russian asset".

Look, while I am sure what Musk says is very important, what is also important it's that many millions of people live (used to live?) on territories Russia claims. Ukraine cannot just give up on its citizens. Certainly not because Musk says something on Twitter. If it does, and does it easily, how am I as a Ukrainian citizen to know that my region (a would-be border region) is not next to be given up on?

> Since the beginning of the war, there are literally hundreds of similar examples. Not calling it appeasement would earn you the title of "Russian asset".

How does such a title matter?

It is Russia's, and only Russia's, fault that Russia has territorial ambitions on Ukraine. Russia has no viable claim to any Ukrainian territory [1]. The limits of Russia's territorial ambitions appear to either be the boundaries of the Russian Empire (which would include much of Poland) or the existence of large Russian-speaking minorities (which would exclude Poland, I believe).

[1] Even in Crimea, it is not clear that a majority of the population would have voted to become a part of Russia in a free & fair election. It's certainly clear that everywhere else in Ukraine, support for being a part of Russia extends no further than wherever Russian forces occupy.

> It is Russia's, and only Russia's, fault that Russia has territorial ambitions on Ukraine. Russia has no viable claim to any Ukrainian territory

I don't get the point of this. Are you looking for someone to place the blame on, or what? What is the point of throwing these arbitrary postulations in someone's face? Closing one's eyes and ears, and pretending that the cause-effect wasn't obvious serves what specifically?

> Even in Crimea, it is not clear that a majority of the population would have voted to become a part of Russia in a free & fair election.

It's wasn't clear in 1995 if they wanted to be dissolved into Ukraine[*]. And freshwater blockade for the most of the last decade clearly didn't bring any good sentiments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea_(1992%E2%80...

> It's certainly clear that everywhere else in Ukraine, support for being a part of Russia extends no further than wherever Russian forces occupy.

Well, yeah, when you remove all the opposition, and then remove the voting rights from the people who didn't support your revolution, it certainly becomes "clear".

Ok, please educate me on how Russia was “forced” to invade multiple neighbors.

Multiple?

Georgia and Ukraine, and they’ve been making a lot of noise about Moldova.

What do people even know of Georgia? From where I stand it seems like most people are completely out of the loop of the whole Georgian-Ossetian conflict. I think most are even unaware that the EU had blamed Saakashvili[1] who allegedly triggered early legal response by Russia.

But then Russia supposedly took it too far and for some reason now everyone thinks it was Russia invading Georgia when it was actually Georgia invading Ossetian Tskhinval, which happened to have a defence pact with Russia, triggering the 5-day war.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-russia-report-idU...

Considering history and it's geography. Poland being prepared against invasion is a prudent move.

Russia's government officials have vaguely threatened nuclear war against multiple European countries this year alone. NATO is standing together for now, but some major political parties in key NATO members have connections to Russia.

Russia also loudly denied any plans to invade Ukraine until they rolled across the border. And they've been repeatedly caught committing barbaric atrocities against civilians in occupied territories.

So if the Poles want to sign up for military training, then more power to them. Being willing to defend your loved ones and your country is a noble endeavor. You don't even need a specific reason. And if the Poles want the ability to defend themselves without being utterly reliant on their NATO allies, that's their right.

USA here, filled with ridiculous information each day from the mass media news. Please do not repeat this escalation talk about nuclear threats. I was reading some news site in German and saw the day that a "threat" was made.. by the Prime Minister of Turkmenistan or someone similar. It is a "brain off" meme and an escalation.

End This War, not Endless War

Russian news has been talking about nuking ‘the West’s decision-making centers’ for the last 2 months and publicizing different ‘attack plans’ to take over the Baltic states and move west. While it’s likely just posturing, to say it’s western news making stuff up is just silly.

what news? in the USA we cannot see any of that.. maybe they have media that encourages war talk..

End this War please

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic at this point, but yes, you can in fact see Russian news in the USA. There are plenty of places(ie. Reddit) where people also add English subtitles for non-Russian speakers.

Who? Kadyrov? He's the attack dog just for show.

Whenever I dug in more deeply, Russia has warned about using nuclear weapons to preserve its own territorial integrity.

One could argue that declaring Donbass Russian is a semantic trick to "justify" using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. But where is the threat against EU countries?

The Russian ambassador to London has just declared that they won't use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (Sky News). Is he lying? Possibly, but that contradicts open threats.

Invasion is such a dirty word, maybe they "free" some countries from EU.

If you wait until you are actually being invaded to start preparing for it, you're gonna have a bad time. It takes about 6-9 months to properly train a new soldier, so you need to start planning for a cadre of soldiers well in advance of any actual invasion.

Honestly, even waiting until the first rumblings of a possible invasion seems to start preparing contingency plans is too late, because once the rumbling start, people will complain that anything that visibly attempts to resist it is "too provocative."

Source?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com