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Comment by alphabettsy | Hacker News Reader

> Most nations don’t have flat open fields where signals can reach far away drones unimpeded by line of sight for tx/rx.

Citation needed.

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I saw some fascinating videos explaining that the terrain caused the war in first place.

The huge border between Russia and Ukraine is completely flat grassland. This means that to Russia, Ukraine joining NATO is an unacceptable risk because that border is impossible to defend against NATO tank invasion, and the flatness go all the way to Moscow.

A lot of people on internet keep poking fun at Russia inadequate tanks as "proof" Russia is stupid for invading with such crappy gear. Russia is very well aware of this, and is why they invaded in first place, they know of Ukraine joins NATO any military exchange with NATO (like what happened between Iran and Israel) would need to immediately become nuclear because their existing army can't defend the huge open flat terrain against NATO equipment.

I would say that the events of Russo-Ukrainian war have shown that even a lot of tanks (and NATO does not have anywhere near as many as Russia did, the former Soviet stockpile was absolutely massive) aren't the crushing force that they used to be in Manstein's and Guderian's time. Of course Putin is a bit old and may think in old patterns...

On the other hand, I believe Russia made itself very vulnerable by letting its cosmic sector drown in corruption. Nowadays they have fallen so behind the US in launch capabilities that it isn't even funny. Try hiding anything from the fleet of satellites that the US has, or can have if it wishes to.

Starlink may be the single most dangerous technologic development of the 21st century to Russia.

However, they effectively bought the owner of Starlink.

I don't believe they have enough money to buy Musk. They can influence him through propaganda and memes, but outright bribery is unlikely. That would have to be a vast, vast money transfer.

Trump looks more likely to be bribe-able than Musk. Very different personalities and net worths. Musk seemed to be genuinely angry with Trump's budget, for example.

Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla, which from a business perspective is in very deep trouble. But the stock price doesn’t reflect this. I sometimes wonder how much it’s worth to Musk that the stock not reflect Tesla’s actual performance, and who might be driving those irrational price movements.

Why do you think everything can be bought with just money? He might be sold if for trivial things. Some Russian hooker, propaganda and memes, as you said, make him believe siding with Russians makes him more cool. Same things as with the orange guy.

It's hard to tell for sure about the tanks, the Russian army used really shitty tactics. Tanks are supposed to be used with infantry support to avert "cheap shots" with short range anti-tank weapons. Turkey managed to lose a few Leopards in a similar way. Just Leopards with nothing hanging out in enemy territory.

> tanks aren't the crushing force that they used to be in Manstein's and Guderian's time

Russians have assault groups of couple tanks and half a dozen ifv. Had Guderian used same forces in a single battle? The biggest Russian operations had 40-60 armored vehicles, mainly ifv.

Tanks are still a real power, especially western modern tanks.

3 days after russian invasion or main russian news agency was auto-published article that was supposed to be a victory lap, and promptly removed. it was very briefly mentioned only in few western publications and not many people who speak russian know about it

it gives some insights about reasons for russian invasion. this is english translation . not sure how accurate (don't feel like checking few pages of text), but close enough

https://www.aalep.eu/advent-russia-and-new-world

origin in russian. you can right-click translate it https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...

Well if they didn’t bother their neighbors they wouldn’t have to worry about NATO. Seems like a self imposed wound there.

Whenever I see this reasoning, I wonder how many people really believe not a single NATO country will ever elect a nutjob that might just decide to invade someone for a bullshit reason.

For example, hypothetically, what is the chance for a major NATO country will never have a president that might decide to bomb another country out of the blue, because that country according to said president, has weapons of mass destruction, despite the fact the same country intelligence said the target DOESN'T have such weapons? This will never happen right?

I recommend looking up European military readiness levels before diving too deep into fantasies. Who is supposed to invade Russia? Latvia, with its tank army of exactly zero tanks? Or a major country like Germany, with its barely 100 operational tanks and enough artillery ammunition for just two days?

Even in Russia, only complete loonies treats this as a plausible scenario. That's why you can see bunkers and anti-tank ditches and defensive lines being built on the European side of the Russian border, and nothing of this sort on the Russian side. They don't even have a basic chain-link fence. Mushroomers sometimes get lost and just walk into Russia.

> before diving too deep into fantasies

You do realise that the parent was actually making a historical reference? "Weapons of mass destruction"... doesn't that ring a bell?

Historical or about a week ago

That has nothing to do with "NATO tank invasion of Moscow".

So? Nothing in NATO brings the rest of the alliance along for the ride in that case. The core agreement is defensive, not offensive, and historically NATO has not at all been unified on attacks on other countries.

NATO was fairly well united in attacks on Afghanistan, Serbia, and Libya. (I'm just clarifying the historical record, not attempting to justify Russia's actions.)

There is a big difference between behaving like Saddam Husain vs a geopolitically boring country where nothing happens ever and the people have a high standard of peaceful living as a result. Another self imposed wound for Saddam choosing to be an overall thorn in the side during most of his entire regime. Iraqis could have had the chill high standard of living boring peaceful lives that is part and parcel in the western world. We act like these things are impossible to achieve elsewhere but really the people take to that readily when it is made available, and it is merely the leadership that needs to stop the almost high school tier tit for tat feuding and military mindset of the world that some have. We see this with every society that goes from warbent and militant to basically nothing happening since that pivotal regime change or shift in the wind moment and living peacefully: e.g. Japan after WWII. South Korea. Vietnam. Yugoslavia. East Germany. Spain. Italy. The list goes on with examples from around the world over the last century. Entropy favors peace but it is leadership that steers things otherwise every time.

>NATO tank invasion

Invasion? Oh my, are you delusional? NATO is a defence alliance, stop consuming Russian propaganda maybe.

You mean defence of Yugoslavia/Serbia in 1999?

I mean their sense of being is the defending alliance. And from their being scared by Russia and unwilling to help Ukraine, we can tell that when Russia would attack Estonia, they will do nothing and invent some excuse why Putin is a good marvellous wonderful guy with whom I’m personally a very good friend. Them attacking Russia first, looks unbelievable. They are afraid to even help the country that was attacked, as they were told by Russians they won’t be happy, and so they obediently do what they told.

Basically: yes. If memory serves, NATO had no excuse to intervene until a neutral investigative team (of pre-NATO Finns) determined that yes, Serbia committed a big massacre of civilians.

> NATO is a defence alliance

Libya?

That same NATO that has problems getting artillery ammo because they decommissioned the plants? Is this dangerous alliance in the room right now?

Invading eastern Ukraine isn’t going to do anything about that problem. Once Russia failed to take Kyiv in 2022 any strategic justification was gone.

There is the possibility of a peace settlement that includes a provision prohibiting Ukraine from joining NATO. Personally, I would say this is a reasonably likely outcome.

I’m engaging with this as though Russia’s motivations are serious, despite the fact that they’re doing nothing to actually prepare for this hypothetical NATO invasion. But even if you engage with it seriously, the failure to secure and defend Western Ukraine makes Russia totally vulnerable, NATO commitments or not. And losing so much of your military reserves doing it should terrify anyone who is actually concerned about defending Russia. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is literally the only thing protecting them right now.

> The huge border between Russia and Ukraine is completely flat grassland. This means that to Russia, Ukraine joining NATO is an unacceptable risk because that border is impossible to defend against NATO tank invasion, and the flatness go all the way to Moscow.

This can be reversed and then Russia was supposed to be able to use its supply of 20000 prewar tanks to just swipe through Ukraine and stop at Uzghorod like an Iraqi 2003 style thunder run. It tried to, but failed miserably.

Maybe 19th and early 20th century doctrines are no longer alive with guided ammunition and spotting drones constantly in the air. Actually we can see it in Ukraine today, the moment when Russia setups an armored column it will often get disassembled by drones and artillery kilometers before reaching the zero line. It requires major effort and sacrifice to move frontline few meters on open terrain.

Travel the world or check out your favorite map software, snd look at current hot conflicts and recent ones in the past. You have Iraq and Ukraine/Russia which are relatively flat, then you have Afghanistan or Iran on the opposite side of the spectrum. Even a flat country can have forests too thick for flying wirelessly or with fiber optics.

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