Meanwhile in Ukraine

[Torost]

http://qz.com/376743/how-norway-lost-control-of-its-own-secret-500-million-arctic-navy-base/

pretty dumb

Brag: I was deep down in that naval base when it was still operational, very james bond villain type base. Subs and smaller surfaceships lined up in the pens.

The navy was severly downsized recently.
Makes sense, surfaceships are just high value targets that is easily taken out in a conflict with an opponent more sophisticated than somali pirates.
Subs used to  make sense, staying hidden stealth and all that jazz. Harder and harder to do that anymore.

That said, shoulda mothballed it imo. Never know when you need a base like that. Takes a lot of ressorces to build a new one. And not instantly available.
The income made from the sale and future revenue from any commercial enterprise this sale makes is negligible.
Should have just mothballed it for later.

Russians might gain some intel on general nato defenceconstruction, since it is prob of the same spec as other "secret bases".
Spying some blueprints, sketches etc is not the same as sending you own crew in to do exact measurements.

[Molly]

Once visited an old WW2 sub... jeez, that shit is depressing.

[Torost]

alarm!

[Xant]

Looks like Russia is a red herring for whole europe nowadays  By the way, every day I feel more and more Scandinavia as part of the Russian world, illegally seized from my ancestors

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-nordic-nations-baltic-ukraine-/26948181.html 

"Defense" cooperation. Nordic countries are finally going to take back what is rightfully theirs (Rus is what the Northmen were called and Rurik was a Finn). Ukraine was a Nordic plot to distract Russia.

[Vovka]

Rurik was a Finn

Ahah than insignificant nation, the grander its achievements in the past, and preferably so far in the past that did not have any accurate evidence XD
I hope I understood correctly, and this is was a joke and not fact from finnish history books XD

Ukraine was a Nordic plot to distract Russia.

btw known fact that the Ukrainians migrated north, they are also taught the barbarians of the north how to to build ships and headed their campaigns. so I'm sure you're on the third Ukrainian or more

[Oberyn]

Thomek, do you honestly think that Europe will never be touched by war again, and if it is it will be the end of civilization as we know it? That's exactly what people thought after WW1. It's so fucking stupid. A mix of naivete and arrogance, as if we had somehow reached a new phase of history. We really never learn our lesson do we. I think there must be some sort of collective psychological reason why humans are stupid enough to always ignore the next coming conflict, over and over and over again throughout all of history. We aren't any different from our ancestors, I'm sorry to tell you. And our future isn't going to be composed of flowers and rainbows and eternal peace forever, no matter how many blind idiots believe it.

[Kalam]

Its kinda odd that Russia thinks that NATO is out to get them. The really crappy part is that majority of Russias trainingexercises near natos borders are basically invasiondrills, with fuckton of soldiers and equipment + fully armed missiles pointed at some of natos allies. Natos trainingexercises near Russia are generally mainly joint defence drills with significantly less troops and equipment + defensive missileshields.

Beond just expanding eastward, I just dont see how nato is threatening Russia more than it is threatening them....

'Defense' from a power that has spent most of it's active military time in occupation is threatening. You think the United States would tolerate Russian 'defense' exercises in Mexico?

I'm not defending Russia by any means. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. To assume NATO is blameless, however, requires a little self-deception.

I am merely pointing out that training exercises near borders are usually for the neighbor's benefit. Notice that American forces in South Korea have more large scale 'wargames' than most other American commands.

That's a repeated message for North Korea. There's no reason to publicize these wargames as much as they do, besides that fact.

Oberyn: we'd learn if people stopped dying of old age. I mean, that's also part of the reason societies are allowed to grow (if everyone alive in the 19th century was alive now, I assume the social structure of society would not have lead to a 'widening circle') but I imagine people who've experience a war between relatively equal powers would be less likely to repeat that mistake.

Then again, there was World War II after World War I so maybe people just don't learn regardless.

[Thomek]

Thomek, do you honestly think that Europe will never be touched by war again, and if it is it will be the end of civilization as we know it? That's exactly what people thought after WW1. It's so fucking stupid. A mix of naivete and arrogance, as if we had somehow reached a new phase of history. We really never learn our lesson do we. I think there must be some sort of collective psychological reason why humans are stupid enough to always ignore the next coming conflict, over and over and over again throughout all of history. We aren't any different from our ancestors, I'm sorry to tell you. And our future isn't going to be composed of flowers and rainbows and eternal peace forever, no matter how many blind idiots believe it.

I would completely agree with you if it weren't for Nukes.

As banal as it may sound, there really is no winner in a nuclear war, thus dissuading any direct action between Nuclear armed countries. The war, if it were to happen would have to be moved into proxy territories, waged by proxies. How many such territories are left in Europe?

I also don't believe in intercepting/protection from nukes. It is simply much easier to create a more capable delivery system than to create a defensive one. Already, government reaction chain time is a huge problem..

[Oberyn]

Again, people thought the exact same thing after WW1. The Great War was incredibly devastating, obviously a new war would be the end of civilization as we know it, just bad for everyone involved, therefore war is now unthinkable. Why do you think the appeasement and Chamberlain "peace in our time" happened? Do you truly think, given the scope of history and what we know of human collectives, that never again will there be any reason or utility for military capability beyond the umbrella of nukes? That there will never again be conflict, death and war in any territory in Europe?

[Xant]

Ahah than insignificant nation, the grander its achievements in the past, and preferably so far in the past that did not have any accurate evidence XD
I hope I understood correctly, and this is was a joke and not fact from finnish history books XD

It's a genetic fact, you might learn about it in half a century or so when knowledge of DNA and genetics makes its slow and ponderous way into Russia.

[Oberyn]

A lot of what is considered north-western Russia today was territory of finno-ugric tribes. There was no complete population replacement, but most got slavicized and absorbed over time, and the division between slavic and vologda russian genetically is still there, even though it is no great difference relatively.  There are also links to other nordic genetic clades. The finnish linguistic isolation from it's neighbors is not represented in the genetic data of the population.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/the-genetic-heritage-of-europes-north/

I have no idea about Rurik being a finn however. In terms of heritage it's not that far fetched, but ethnolinguistically everything I have read/heard about Rurik points to him being scandinavian.

[Xant]

A lot of what is considered north-western Russia today was territory of finno-ugric tribes. There was no complete population replacement, but most got slavicized and absorbed over time, and the division between slavic and vologda russian genetically is still there, even though it is no great difference relatively.  There are also links to other nordic genetic clades. The finnish linguistic isolation from it's neighbors is not represented in the genetic data of the population.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/11/the-genetic-heritage-of-europes-north/

I have no idea about Rurik being a finn however. In terms of heritage it's not that far fetched, but ethnolinguistically everything I have read/heard about Rurik points to him being scandinavian.

From his wiki page

"Contrary to the Norman theory of the origin of the Kievan Rus' state, N1c1 is not widely found in Scandinavian countries, but is overwhelmingly found among Baltic and Finnish ethnicities. The N1c1 haplotype possess the distinctive value DYS390=23, also rarely found in Scandinavia, but with the closest relatives of the Rurikid haplotype being found in coastal Finland, among the Swedish-speaking Finns"

[Oberyn]

So yeah, ethnolinguistically swedish. There is genetic variation inside Finland, between coastal finns and those of the interior. The coastal ones have larger admixtures of scandinavian/german, for obvious geographic reasons. The linked article makes that particular point, that the rurikid itinerary picked up finnish heritage along the way. Genetic heritage is not the same as cultural, is the point, and different heritages can overlap and have different proportions depending on the area. The same way anatolian turks have large admixtures of greek heritage depending on geography (especially coastal), but it is not something that is politicized or accepted in any way. And vice versa in Greece. As if greeks and turks did not interract with each other genetically and culturally during the hundreds of years of Rum and Ottoman rule, and remained distinct and separate all the way to the early 20th century population exchange, when greeks were ethnically cleansed from turkish territory and vice versa. The genetic data makes clear that this is a fantasy. The turkish migration into annatolia shows relatively small genetic impact, the conclusion is that it was mostly elite replacement and acculturation.

[Thomek]

@Oberyn

I simply don't buy the wwi/wwii comparison. If artillery and the machinegun upped the killing potential 100fold, and didn't stop wwii, the nuclear potential is perhaps again a million times more devastating. It is not hypothetical, it is fact. Besides the germans believed they had "cracked" the stalemate of wwi, which gave them faith they could pull it off, and this is crucial:

To start a territorial war, you need to believe it is winnable. A nuclear war between superpowers is not winnable. A new term to replace phyrric victory would have to show up if someone "won" such a war. To back me up you can look at the whole of the cold war. War in Europe didn't happen, even though relations were much colder than they are now.

So if there will be war in europe it has to happen in a way that is not escalating into nuclear war. It is a question about where the threshold to Armageddon is. So anything below that threshold goes. Anything approaching it does not. Then we can discuss where that threshold really is. The Baltic states? maybe. But not worth it. Poland? Definitely not. It has to be Ukraine or possibly Belarus, as well as the Russian puppet regimes in Georgia and Moldova.

[[ptx]]

But, you know, MAD is only a consequence of a direct bidirectional nuclear exchange. Not of a "native separatist uprising", as is happening in Ukraine and could just as well happen anywhere in Eastern Europe.
Nukes are only a guarantee of a nuclear exchange not happening, the rest is basically a bluff.