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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

But this provides interesting signal: under certain circumstances, Putin is willing to flee via private aircraft for safety. Whether intentional or not, stimulus and response has been observed.

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To be clear, that is the established protocol for the commander and chief of most militaries. That’s why such a big deal was made when Zelensky didn’t leave Kyiv despite advancing Russian forces. If there was a credible threat to President Biden he would be on Air Force One immediately.

At least part of the point is recognizing that this was a credible threat to Putin.

What would it take for the US president to leave Washington DC though? Obviously a real possibility of nuclear war. What else though?

I think 9/11 did. Granted President George W. Bush was famously reading a book to school children when it happened, but I believe he stayed Airborne on Air Force One for several additional hours as a precaution.

Also President Madison evacuated Washington, DC during the War of 1812.

Covid. Trump left for the mountains during the pandemic.

If there was a credible threat to President Biden he would be on Air Force One immediately.

Where would he go? Australia ?

Depends on where the threat is coming from, obviously.

There's the Pentagon, Raven Rock Mountain Complex, Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the Greenbrier bunker, the Peters Mountain facility, 33 Thomas Street, nearly a dozen aircraft carriers, Camp David, and god knows how many military bases.

Or he could just board the doomsday fleet of E-4Bs and stay in the air

I mean, the Pentagon doesn’t sound like being on airforce one ?

You’re not suggesting AF1 can actually land on a carrier are you?

Marine One. Which is likely how the President would get from the White House to AF1 in the first place, if that were the getaway plan.

Yea marine one could, fair enough.

Nebraska

Red Lobster

COOP / PPD-40

Government Continuity of Operations:

Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances. PPD-40 specifies certain requirements for continuity plan development, including the requirement that all federal executive branch departments and agencies develop an integrated, overlapping continuity capability, that supports the eight National Essential Functions (NEFs) described in the document.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_governme...>

See also:

Post Attack Command and Control System: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Attack_Command_and_Contro...>

United States Continuity of Operations Facilities: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Continuity_of_Op...>

<https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd/pdd-67.htm>

Depending on the circumstances he may stay in the air until the threat was resolved. Assuming the US tanker fleet isn't wiped out Air Force One and its escorts can stay aloft indefinitely and act as a command center for the military. That's the plan in case of nuclear war.

> Where would he go?

Nowhere. AF1 can be refueled in the air indefinitely, and carries enough food and water for several days. You ground civilian traffic and shoot down anything non-military in the air; nothing's getting to you.

Another signal - a sparsely equipped army of a few thousand can march in from Ukraine and take Moscow in a matter of hours, facing minimal resistance. Regardless of the outcome I’m sure NATO has been taking detailed notes.

This I don't think is very surprising. Unless the defense expects it and has time to prepare, the speeds achievable by military vehicles, especially combined with well-developed road infrastructure of modern urbanized countries, means that the attacker can easily cover large distances fast.

In other words: APCs on a highway are not that different from intercity buses, and highways are designed to let you cross the country quickly.

russian army did try to slow him down from the air. but they managed to take down 6 helicopters and one airplane (flying command center). all the army/etc on his way was simply surrendering

Right. It would've been a different story if the Russian army treated them as enemy - their air forces could've stopped the convoy dead at any point of their choosing.

Highways let you move fast only as long as they're intact and no one is shooting at you; otherwise, they make you an easy target. Russian army experienced that first-hand in the first two months of their invasion of Ukraine.

>Right. It would've been a different story if the Russian army treated them as enemy - their air forces could've stopped the convoy dead at any point of their choosing.

my point was that they tried and they failed. wagner has a bunch of manpads and few pantsir sam systems. they tried to bomb them on highway from planes but missed and kill civilians in track. they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary. they also tried to bomb some bridge to block road to moscow - but also missed

Is this confirmed? I stayed away from the news firehose this time, and only followed BBC live reporting, and IIRC there was no confirmation there of any bombing attempt, successful or otherwise.

there are videos of helis shooting refinery and planes bombing bridge (followed by video of somebody driving near the bridge and holes in highway or near it). about track on highway - there are videos of it burning with commentary that plane try to bomb wagner convoy but missed

> they also tried to shoot at them missles at voronezh but blew up some petrol refinary

No, I believe the oil refinery got blown up by a Wagner surface to air missile. The Wagners were trying to shoot down a federal Ka-52, the helicopter successfully deployed countermeasures, and the missile flew off target into the backstop - which happened to be a refinery.

There are two videos of the event from different angles circulating on telegram, it's pretty clear.

the reports were saying that wagners camped at refinery and helis tried to shoot at them. either way, helis definitely weren't there on behalf of santa claus with early presents delivery

Where on telegram?

If that was the video I saw yesterday.... wow. That pilot should be thanking every god from every belief. That missle just barely missed him.

I can only imagine in the US that if we could not use aircraft directly on the convoy, say they have very good air defense, we'd have dumped the bridges on the interstates in less than a day.

Yes, and I'm pretty sure Russia could do that too - if they were getting Blitzkrieged by some outside enemy force. Here, it was a theoretically friendly and small force, that suddenly turned around and drove towards Moscow. Given how much damage blowing up bridges and highways would do to the country, and somewhat unclear threat from the approaching mercenaries, I don't think anyone on the defense side considered dropping a bridge on the highway to be a reasonable move.

"I don't think anyone on the defense side considered dropping a bridge on the highway to be a reasonable move."

It surely was considered. I can imagine in the state of panic even tactical nukes were considered, but sure, not reasonable.

But if Wagner forces would have actually pushed through, then they definitely would have blown up bridges, if the alternative would have been Moscow under siege or house to house fighting.

From what I've heard (personal hearsay, got no independent sources), some excavators were sent to ruin highways.

Edit: here's a link but this is not on the main highway. Unsure of the scale of this "operation" and if this was ordered from top brass or local initiative.

https://meduza.io/news/2023/06/24/v-lipetskoy-oblasti-gde-na...

they did bomb one of their own bridges (there is a video). and there were rumors that they plan to blow up few more

To be clear though, there is no convoy on earth that the US Air Force can’t strike.

The Afghans would like a word with you.

Yeah if aliens for some reason wanted an invasion of the US homeland by zombie mindcontrolling the army of one other country (and had some way to negate nukes) their best chance wouldn't be China or the EU but Canada and Mexico, just because of the developed land transport infrastructure between the countries

It’s not news to anyone that NATO could win a (conventional) war with Russia. The important result is that any sizable chunk of military force in Russia itself stands a good chance of it.

I wonder if the chance of tactical nuclear weapons being used would go up in a Russian civil war.

Especially if there's been reports it's seriously been considered in Ukraine.

Why risk nuclear armageddon when you can conveniently switch sides at the slightest occasion. It's not like armies marching to shuffle a few chairs in big offices were a matter of deep ideological conflict or worse.

Tactical nuclear weapons are very low yield bombs. You won’t start nuclear armageddon with those.

That's why I wrote risk, not cause. It's chain reactions all the way up the meta levels.

You do realize that NATO is currently essentially out of ammunition, right?

I think you should do some research on the topic before you conclude that "NATO is out of ammunition". I highly recommend Perun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deK98IeTjfY .

I'd look to how NATO ran out of PGMs etc when fighting in Libya. I didn't see a big uptick in arms purchases after that. Also, Germany recently crowed about sending 1000 155mm artillery rounds. That's like 3 hours of firing at Ukraine's current rate. The reason Germany has been so slow to provide weaponry to Ukraine is that it is a shell of its former self. The Kriegsmarine has been a joke for decades, the Luftwaffe can barely put 60 aircraft in the air, and the Heer has fewer tanks than Poland, and most of these tanks are in poor condition and shared with the Netherlands.

NATO is not what it was before 1989, and will take decades to come back up to a minimally acceptable level.

It will now take less than decades thanks to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

There are huge institutional challenges for this to occur. Production facilities have all been consolidated (as they have in the US since the end of the Cold War.) Budgets are also a problem; the majority of NATO members aren't even making the 2% of GDP goal. And there are also some demographic issues; the population of the EU is aging and military service doesn't have as strong an appeal. Will Germany reinstate the draft?

And some things do take decades, even in perfect conditions. Building up a navy takes time due to the long construction timelines for ships. Developing coordination for combined arms operations requires both good officers and non-coms. These take time to develop as well, and need to be continually sustained.

You can train non commissioned officers in a matter of months (like 2-3). And during WW2 the US was pushing out 3 ships per day.

If you focus efforts, it doesn’t take long at all.

You can set up a schedule to train non-coms in 2-3 months, that doesn't mean they'll be very good. Experience is extremely valuable at this level.

And surely you understand that the US economy and state of industry in 1943 (when the Liberty ships were being launched daily) is quite different than today? Only one country currently has the shipbuilding capacity to even think of something like that. The US (and Europe) have closed down a huge number of shipyards since the end of the Cold War, and it would take decades to create new ones, with trained workforces. All the US shipyards are short workers in almost all categories.

> You can set up a schedule to train non-coms in 2-3 months, that doesn't mean they'll be very good. Experience is extremely valuable at this level.

This one statement means you don’t know what you’re talking about. Non commissioned officers are E4 rank, you can leave bootcamp at E3 rank. 6 months later get E4. NCO only requires experience at the E7 or above level, which don’t fight only lead.

FYI, the German Navy is called Bundesmarine or just "Deutsche Marine" (=> "German Navy"), not Kriegsmarine.

The name Kriegsmarine, when used to describe the German Navy, has extremly strong WW2 connotations, on a similar level as "Wehrmacht". :)

Thank you! I've studied WW2 much more in comparison to modern warfare and sometimes I forget the changes.

I can confidently say that I know quite a bit more on the topic than you do.

NATO simply has neither the stockpiles nor the production capacity to enter this war.

Meh. We'll make more.

Can you?

Can I what? I am not a country, nor do I speak on behalf of one.

Then how do you know the status of the stockpiles?

The knowledge is there when he needs it. It comes down from upstairs. They tell him what he needs to know, they tell him what he needs to say, and they feed him all the borscht he can eat. And then there's the extra potato ration on Tuesdays to look forward to.

That's the amusing part. The sad part is that the people behind the troll farms still think they're fooling anybody in the West.

If they're already past Russia's defensive front.

You're forgetting that most people in Russia support Wagner, which could be the reason they could advance so easily.

They faced minimal resistance because those in power wanted to give them minimal resistance (not to stir up bad blood before the matter is resolved otherwise). If they were an actual emeny unit (not an ex-ally in negotiations, which was the case) they'd be obliterated by air and land in minutes.

And of course marching towards Moscow only staying hundrends of kilometers away from it (while being let to march), and "taking Moscow in a matter of hours" is a totally different thing.

>. If they were an actual emeny unit (not an ex-ally in negotiations, which was the case) they'd be obliterated by air and land in minutes.

i think you overestimate russian military might. russian military is second strongest military in russia those days

I think you overestimate a Twitter oneliner

lets see: in less than 2 days they took over 2 regional centers, southern military headquarters (in process captured deputy minister of defense and deputy chief of military intelligence) and 2 military airbases. marched unopposed for few hundred miles towards moscow and stopped only because they decided to do (also took down a bunch of military aircrafts.). at same time russian government managed only to put a bunch of tracks with sand on highways to block it, demolish parts of highway and bomb their own bridge.

prior to this, last month, some RDK and Russian Legion performed ~10km deep incursions into russia, pretty much unopposed and stayed there for a days.

so no, it's not only onliners. it's just state of russian state. where everything is fake and for show

Yes, minutes, just like russia could take Kyiv last year, they just chose to turn around as a gesture of goodwill. Definitely no weakness and incompetence there.

Reality is ground forces let wagner pass out of fear/solidarity. Only aviation tried, and failed hard to stop the convoy.

Why do we believe Putin fled? What's the source of that information, and what reason does that source have to lie?

A flight track of the presidential plane departing the usual airport in Moscow, and switching off its transponder 100km later.

How often does the US president’s plane fly without him?

Whatever the answer is, it wouldn't provide any evidence for or against what's being discussed. Processes used by the US military don't tell you anything about practices of the Russian presidential plane.

At best we have no information about the Russian presidential plane, which is exactly my point. We make all these assumptions about what's happening without any real basis for those assumptions. This is why I say most of the news around Russia/Ukraine is propaganda. It's all told with the narrative that the west wants.

Note: I support Ukraine, Russia is absolutely in the wrong

Why, did people expect him to be an idiot or go Avengers style and fight himself, perhaps with bare hands? Of course he'll go somewhere safe and work from there. That's what leaders all over the world too in such crisis moments, if an attack is suspected.

Wagner claimed a strength of 25k, actual number advancing on Moscow was probably lower. Not a good look for someone who has cultivated a strongman image for decades to be fleeing from that.

Flee where?

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