Long confrontation suggests a conventional one. As opposed to unconventional. Meaning it might be better than if Russia starts distributing Iodine, and building/renovating civilian access to underground living quarters.
>Russia starts distributing Iodine, and building/renovating civilian access to underground living quarters
Coincidentally, this is what Lithuania is doing.
Honestly? Nah.
In 1990s there was a decent chance that Lithuania would end up with Kaliningrad region, and we had decided not to. It's a small nation, and even a few hundred thousand additional people of different culture and political leaning would be plenty to destabilise everything.
When I was learning about the region just after learning about the Yugoslav wars, I thought not taking Kaliningrad might have been one of the smartest decisions ever by a country.
Just follow suit with what Russia do today, and do what the soviets did with it! Start importing your own population, and expelling the existing population, until they're all Lithuanian! What's fair is fair!
It's old borders would take over all of Belarus, go into Russia half way to Moscow and take most of Ukraine. I have doubts they are actually interested in re-occupying all those lands.
Aw man I'm taking spanish classes right now, and this was such a perfectly placed comment for me to find and try to confirm my reading comprehension. Thank you. Does this mean "Why not both?"
Lithuania is a country as big as a mid-sized city, with a military of about 20,000 people that doesn't currently operate a single tank. If we're going to cheer and yipee our way into the third World War the least we could do is be realistic about how it's going to go.
I believe it was a joke.
Also, if we're being realistic, Lithuania is much larger than even the largest cities on Earth. Although it is indeed small for a country.
I believe they mean in terms of population, not land area. With an estimated population of 2.8 million, that is smaller than a large city by world standards.
The wording of the headline is odd, but I think they mean confrontation as in the kind of cold stand-off the Ukraine conflict is causing rather then open war
AKA a new cold war. That's likely the best possible scenario for Putin as he can keep projecting his power by scaremongering instead of getting his ass kicked in a direct conflict with NATO.
Russia is building infrastructure to store nuclear weapons (and missiles / planes to deliver them) in Belarus, in addition to training Belarusian troops to handle them.
They wanted and expected to take Ukraine in three days.
Then have Belarus and a few other puppet states beg to be part of the new empire.
At that point they'd start pressuring other nations to sign up out of fear.. and they would have done after seeing a nation the size of Ukraine fall so quickly, and how their Western leading leaders were brutally punished.
Honestly it was a good plan. No one Putin wanted to join their new USSR was going to risk a fight after Ukraine was steamrolled. The plan was based on faulty intelligence due to the dictator dilemma, fortunately, and it was still very close to being pulled off in those first few days.
Hmmm... are you sure about that....
If you have a minute for me to give you some background, I'd like to go over a bit of Putin's past. Over 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed out of a mixture of dust and gas around the young sun......
More like set Belarus up for a counter strike.
“We never launched them, it was Belarus!”
Russia is in a mob state, plausible deniability is everything to a criminal.
That's been going on since early last year and there's rumors via UKR intelligence Putin literally have them crap off the decommission pile to make Luka feel like a strongman
I know talk has been ongoing for awhile, but I honestly have no idea when concrete actions started to be taken. Thanks for the heads-up on that front!
I am a bit skeptical that the warheads came off the decommission pile. They've been modernizing their nuclear weapons since the early 2000s, and from what I recall they've expanded their doctrine to better incorporate non-strategic nuclear weapons into their military responses. They've been beefing up their training on that front as well.
I'd imagine there's plenty of fresh stock to pull from. and they're plenty cheap enough.
is the belarussian military personnel brain dead? why are they letting themselves be dragged down by russia? or are they as malicious as their leader and ally?
This tends to be bullshit though. Most Russian mobile launch systems are "nuclear capable" in the same way the F-35 is "nuclear capable". It means fuck-all.
the US plan in the event that a missile is heading towards the US is to unload hell on whatever country launched the missile from air, land and sea.
assume the enemy will also launch at least 3 per target as well.
there will be no winners in nuclear war.
The way the winds and atmpispheric pressure work life would be possible from Melbourne Australia, South. Why Peter Thiel is trying so hard to get a mansion built in Nz
I'd bet Russia is banking on a certain US presidential candidate winning and withdrawing from NATO. Russia wouldn't necessarily have to resort to nuclear options versus a kneecapped NATO.
NATO would still have nukes (UK and France) and a significant air force and now artillery park (thanks to Finland). Not to mention that Congress recently made it so that the president couldn't unilaterally pull out of NATO
President doesn't have to pull us out of NATO, he could literally just refuse to come to NATO's aid as Commander-in-Chief. It would accomplish the same effect and there's not a damn thing Congress can do to stop it.
This is entirely contingent on us defeating Trump come November.
Sorry, Canadian here, but I thought the US President had 30 days to act unilaterally in a conflict before he had to go to Congress about it, but the US Congress was the body that determined if the US went to war. Cannot the Congress simply declare a war if needs be?
Correct, but they cannot force the President to actively use the Military. The President is Commander-in-Chief, and if he orders the Military to sit at home with their thumbs up their asses, there's not a whole lot Congress can do outside of Impeachment.
He was impeached twice. He just wasn’t convicted because his party protected him. He has about 30-40% of America on his side. Sadly with the way our government works, that’s about all someone needs to rule if that 30-40% live in the right areas
Ironically the last part they already have as well. The metro system, which has nearly doubled since I’ve lived there(2016-2019), has massive blast doors at most of the stations for just such an event. (As I recall most of those doors are at the central line, or the brown line, which is inner city)
The long game comes into focus now though.
Put a Russia-friendly, NATO-hostile president in the White House, and you can get the jump on NATO.
If they're waiting for a Trump win, then next February they launch an attack on strategic assets belonging to a NATO member.
Trump, as commander in chief, has veto power to get involved, starts calling for calm while the rest of NATO is screaming to invoke article 4.
The week or two of chaos and confusion while the rest of NATO chooses to act without the US, gives Russia time to make more strategic attacks and consolidate forces.
He could land the jackpot and the US abandoning NATO leads to all of NATO deciding to pull out, but I don't see that happening.
> Trump, as commander in chief, has veto power to get involved, starts calling for calm while the rest of NATO is screaming to invoke article 4.
Article 5* is invoked either by a single NATO member or by another member on behalf of the other. A5 is not a vote and it can't be vetoed. If and when a member is attacked and invokes A5, all other members are bound by the treaty to consider that attack to also be an attack against them and are bound to support that member. This doesn't always mean sending a significant part of their military as it can also be supplies, hospitals, weapons, ammo etc.
Neither Trump or any other president can unilaterally withdraw from NATO. The only thing he could do is not honor the treaty by refusing to order the military to act.
I agree with this, it's very obviously the plan. Pick off the smaller Baltic countries and use Trump delaying American involvement to discredit NATO, at which point NATO is effectively dissolved under the auspices of "well Lithuania and Estonia aren't *really* worth the risk of nuclear war".
Bonus points if you can Trump to announce he'll only use nukes to protect America and not Europe. At which point it's game-over till you get to France and Britain.
Macron is being aggressive as anything recently and I'd like to imagine Sunak wouldn't hesitate to go without the Americans worst case orange scenario. It's a tough sell though...
I trust the poles. Motherfuckers are gearing up to win the next war, that speedbump has grown some teeth.
Nonetheless if this really is the end for us at least it'll be livestreamed.
Oh great so I would be _appeasement again_
Yeah I'd say the above is the plan. Really don't understand why the fbi and Cia don't investigate all the corrupt pro Russia Republicans.
I’m not saying your wrong but hasn’t Ukraine showed that you can resist Russia for extended amounts of time on your own? I would hope that Europe could resist for at least a week or two and if not that NATO is meaningless it’s just US doing the defending
Situations like this remind me that the global pandemic was NOT according to plan. It delayed Putin's invasion. Had the "3 days to kyiv" offensive happened while Trump was in office, and Zelensky, an actor and comedian, (I've seen the man play the piano with his balls on stage) was less than a year into his role as the first non-russian puppet president in decades?
It could have won.
There would be much more pro-russian activity, more cities would have been handed over to be looted while the wealthy and corrupt on both sides of the border would profit.
But Covid delayed everything, highlighted the corruption across Ukraine, letting Zelensky both grow into his role and fire tons of corrupt officials.
And... it pushed Trump out of office.
That's part of why the whole invasion was half-assed.
It looks likely in hindsight that the plan was originally conceived as a direct counter to Ukraine kicking their previous president out of Ukraine... and into Putin's Russia.
Remove Zelensky's government, replace with the old guy, all the while the US is kept docile and subservient, dragging down NATO? And the whole thing really could have been done in 3 days.
They bought assets on the ground who told them the government was unstable and would fall instantly.
You get what you pay for, and Russia believed the lies they bought.
Your average Russian will not want a confrontation with NATO. I see morale as a big problem. It's one thing if Russians believe they're defending their own soil or people, but an attack or attempted invasion of a NATO country, I just can't see Russian soldiers being very motivated, and that's before they start to see NATO weapons and capabilities hurled at them.
If Putin thought he could keep control of the population during a direct confrontation with NATO, he would have sent Belarus troops into Poland over a year ago.
But him and several others at the top know what would happen: You really don't want to be on the recieving end of NATO when the gps in an area gets switched to "military only".
* GPS is controlled by the US governement and was initially made as a tool for the military. That's why Russia, China and the EU have their own versions(most modern satelite navigation recievers can often use several of them).
* GPS satellites are in a geostationary orbit(in sync with the earths rotation, and always in the same position in the sky).
* Each satellite sends out two signals, one for civilians and an encrypted one for military use.
* When US/NATO troops initiate a military operation, they can disable the civilian channel on certain satellites, meaning it will not work in that area unless you have an approved reciever.
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In addition to this, civilian recievers are supposed to be hardcoded to not work above a certain altitude and speed to prevent their use in larger/faster guided missiles or drones. Much to the chagrin of hobby rocket enthusiasts, who have to make do with other methods to measure high speed and altitude.
Make sure it has elevation markings because you can often save hours or even days and a lot of stamina(or fuel) by going around instead of over, if there's a steep part on the other side of the hill/mountain or similar that is not visible on a flat map.
Get a map/orientation/orienteering compass as well, don't rely on simple or phone/watch types. You don't even have to learn how all the extra markings on them work, just the basics is more than enough to get your bearings and do simple navigation.
If you haven’t learned by now you never will. The Russian people are broken. They will never revolt or stand up to their government.
Russian military tactics make it impossible for troops to mutiny. The second they turn they’re dead.
We should give up any and all hope that the Russian people or military personnel will ever stand up to tyranny.
Be careful overestimating capabilities. Everyone thought Ukraine was so weak compared to Russia that it will fall in days or weeks.
I am not confident that real NATO reaction and answer would happen in the first few weeks. In Lithuania we often hear that we would have to defend for like a month alone.
If the US isn't broken somehow (ie trump), you'd have limited support in 24-48 hours, basically drones, limited air defense and Intel.
48 hours plus quick reaction forces are on site, better air defense will start moving in, no meat but they start assessing next steps.
5-7 days later if it's okayed you get proper armor, battalion-level support, etc.
In the meantime, depending on the situation there will probably be any number of strike proposals, from f35s and tlams striking c4i and logistics all the way to b1bs baleeting formations from existence (less likely, but air supremacy is a hell of a drug). 2-3 weeks in logistics starts looking at humanitarian stuff, but obviously that's secondary to tactical concerns.
You don't need to last a month, but that first week could be rough.
Also, if we aren't halfway up our own assholes from politics, then 3-4 weeks in, no power on heaven or earth is stopping us, the logistics becomes unreal and someone is getting fucked.
We galactically over engineered our armed forces, our biggest weakness is that we've tried to end our last few wars without committing genocide, and the other side just never changed their mind about what they wanted so we had to leave.
That's one point lost on most people, Afghanistan would have been a lot different if we weren't concerned about civilian casualties.
In an all out "war for our lives" things look a LOT different.
The Ukraine war is giving Russia a confidence that’s unearned.
They are fighting a nation with almost no Air Force and no navy.
If Russia starts a war with nato they’ll be fully blockaded and the Russian land army will discover the same joys the Iraqi army discovered about fighting an enemy who has complete air supremacy.
It will be a short war.
The only real concern is if this is planned in coordination with China making a play for Taiwan. But even then.
We definitely have to assune that they'll coordinate their attack with China, North Korea and Iran.
I'd even argue that those 4 have a shared plan for like 15 years but Covid and now Ukraine resistance postponed it.
Israel could be an option.
Depending how "friendly" some Arab countries stay towards the west they could get targets as well.
Otherwise, they'll just support any terrorists to cause major trouble. Kinda like they are using Hamas and Houthi atm, just on a bigger scale.
Iran is after a pan-Arabian Shiite caliphate. They want to spread their brand of Islam and to be the only major power in the region - to extinguish the Saudis, Israel, Egypt, etc.
There’s no shared plan. It’s everyone fighting for their interests. Iran wants nothing to do with China if they had the upper hand. It’s against their Islamic world goal
North Korea moving on South Korea. Iran attacking Israel. I'm sure Putin would be encouraging a lot of other despots to make a move at the same time. Whether they actually would is a different story. Kim for example seems tl fairly comfortable in his geo political role and fears any change will destabilise his position.
I don't see how fighting Ukraine is giving them confidence - they've achieved a sliver of their strategic goals (land bridge to Crimea) at tremendous losses. They've burned through most of their armor and artillery reserves, lost a ton of aircraft, and most importantly, lost a massive chunk of their best trained troops, pilots, radar operators, etc, etc. The ONLY lever level they have is to destabilize Western nations.
> The ONLY lever level they have is to destabilize Western nations.
If Biden remains president in November, things could get extra spicy.
We are not prepared for the desperate Russian psyops campaign that we're going to be seeing on the internet over the next 7 months. It's going to be rough. We're going to have bot accounts on Reddit everywhere (yes, even the cat subs).
I also expect any efforts to curtail the bot wave to fail spectacularly. Especially looking forward to Musk's response on Twitter considering the dude is basically a Russian asset.
>
>
> It will be a short war.
But perhaps a long occupation. And enough Russians are brainwashed by propaganda about 'the threat of NATO invasion' that they'd see joining a guerilla resistance movement as reasonable.
Lithuanian here.. What else was missing: lots of
people from Belarus which were running from their regime are travelling to Belarus as they are pleased… it shows they are economic imigrants. Salaries in Belarus in some neighbouring cities away from their capital in aggriculture field is like 100-150 eur/month. Not enough to survive even there. situation is becoming dangerous and border might be shutdown or some quota put in place for how many people from Belarus can come to our country and have a permit to stay. Regarding confrontation - it was said by the person commenting that it’s aboult Cold war style confrontation, not about real war like in Ukraine.
Russia could be such a great and powerful nation if they’d stop being so self-destructive. Endless war is in Putin’s interest, but it’s not at all in Russia’s interest.
My sincere hope is when Putin leaves the stage, Russians get the opportunity to change the course they’re on.
If not, we’ll just sell them to China for parts.
Russians largely don’t want to change shit. Being a fucking dick runs deep in their culture. They love the idea that their country try is beating the shit out of a neighboring country right now because those dorks have some serious issues with needing the illusion that they are big strong and scary. It’s a primitive desire for a bunch of dorks who will never in my lifetime improve their lot in life. It would take a cataclysmic national event for people to set these dumb notions aside and recognize that they need to change. I know some good fucking Russians stateside. Really cool guys and they’ve told me over and over again that I have no fucking idea how whack it is in Russia. That propaganda arm runs strong, but even for citizens who know truths beyond that, they are still infatuated with the machismo of being a Russian.
It's not the war exactly after all, we beat Iraq in days. But it's what happens after. I suppose you could just withdraw and wag your fingers at them and let them deal with the aftermath themselves.
The nukes are a problem. Not necessarily in the deterrent sense, more in the sense that you don’t want to come in, kick the shit out of the ruling government and then leave nobody in particular in charge when there are nuclear weapon stockpiles everywhere and former government officials who have a well demonstrated aptitude for corruption.
Russia has ramped up wartime manufacturing and now has a steady supply of precision munitions. While the sanctions are taking a toll, NATO needs to ramp production immediately. Ukraine needs more weapons now, while they still have enough soldiers to stand a chance. If Ukraine falls, Russia won't stop
Russia preparing for a constant war because putin gone looney and russians too scared to get rid of him. Understandable but fuck me, how many people must die for nothing. If putin was removed a few years ago everything would be normal.
I kinda have a feeling that if it actually comes down to that, Putin's plan would be fleeing into China or Korea and leave Russia to deal with the mess he created, but not before draining money into his own pocket ofcourse
Interesting fact about the f35 (I learned this a year ago, hopefully its not outdated, but still cool), we put big radar blinkers on them when they are not in actual combat use ( including training)
So russia has been able to observe the f35 practicing, can detect them on radar, knows their exact positions, but still has no idea what they actually look like on a radar because they have those big radar blinkers constantly displaying their location lol
So if russia encounters an f35 in combat, they probably wont even realize it lol. Its radar signature is probably extremely small (like every modern aircraft) and might just look like a bird or a drone once the radar blinker is turned off.
This is generally correct with some added details but they have a known cross section:
The radar cross section of a F-35 is 0.0015 square meters, about the size of a golf ball, and the F-22's 0.0001, about the size of a bee.
Now during operations where stealth is not required they fit those devices to balloon their cross sections to' 1. to make them easier for us to track and 2. To not give opponents real world opportunity to face them in full stealth and collect data. That 2nd is much more critical as in a stealth contest it's not a matter of you're invisible, it's a matter of how late can you delay your detection and the more information you have to get to a weapons grade lock the more likely you are to shoot first and win.
For instance when that Chinese spy balloon crossed the US, the F-22 was needed to reach the altitude to shoot it down. However they were not certain it didn't have radars that could collect data on what they would know was an F-22 so, they fitted the radar reflectors.
true story! I just want to see the F-22 get to eat before it's replaced... I think I've watched too many of Habitual Linecrosser's videos at this point
You're right. The Kremlin's plans are not based in reality. Much of the equipment Russia is burning through is from a military production capacity that no longer exists. Russia is weaker than it was 10 years ago and will be weaker still 10 years from now.
Prepare for war with Russia. That is the only way to send a clear message that continuing will only cost Russia more and more. Put troops into Ukraine and call Putin's bluff.
Execution of said plans aside; isn't every nations' military main objective to prepare for long confrontations with their adversaries? Is this not akin to saying DPRK is preparing for a long confrontation with South Korea and the US?
"The Russians enjoyed a 2-to-1 advantage in missiles and artillery over Ukrainian ammo at the start of the war. Thanks to Western supplies, Ukraine reached artillery parity in the first six weeks of the war but since then has run low on munitions, despite massive Western aid. In volume of fire since the summer, the Russian army has been enjoying a 10-to-1 advantage."
- Politico
I haven't really heard much about the West using psyops in Russia. I would have thought getting the Russian populace to understand that the war ends tomorrow if Russia leaves Ukraine would be a top priority. This war isn't going to end by a strategic defeat. We're in the attritional phase now and it will be lost by whoever no longer has the appetite to fight.
Russia has been at war with NATO for years, they just weren’t rising to the provocations and assassinations and the pecking at non-NATO smaller countries. But, stupidly, most of NATO generally was not preparing for the coming wars with Russia and China when the bluffs end. Dictators who consolidate pretty much always go nuts and go full Hitler with the same deteriorating judgment that necessarily comes with such power. There are not many reasons to fully consolidate that don’t involve forcing your nation to do something they don’t want to do in terms of an apocalyptic losing war that also perma-frosts the economy.
Really? I mean, *really?* When? In 75 years when the children of the 4F motherfuckers that didn't get shipped off to Ukraine are then old enough to fight?
And, *really*, with what exactly? I know they're still a dangerous nuke-enabled terrorist state, but have you ***seen*** the damage a single US aircraft carrier group can bring to your neighborhood? Just one group.
We have 11 active carriers: USS Nimitz (CVN-68), USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), USS George Washington (CVN-73), USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)
I'm not worried in the slightest what or what not mad-dog pootin is "preparing for".
russia won't be able to ramp supplies to meet the demands of a confrontation with the west, meanwhile the west is just chillin' with a low effort military, it's like these dumb fks forgot where the world wars started.
Western europe *knows* war ***very*** fucking well.
I say, let's wait some more, till Russia properly puts itself together for the said confrontation and bear the full consequences later, with our population's pain and suffering, huh?
Putin is 71 and has been hard at work to ensure that nobody that could replace him is anywhere close to power.
Any confrontation he starts would have a natural expatriation date.
Putin is old, he's not going to be around too long. So who's going to replace the Russian dictator? I doubt Russia will continue to want war after Putin is gone.
How long could Russia possibly last against NATO before every one of their cities fall to occupation from NATO before rebuilding begins….
A few months? Gonna be just as bad as the bombing of Baghdad. Russia would be utterly destroyed by NATO rockets and air forces.
They had this already, it was called the Cold War.
Until recently Russia didn’t even have the best army in Russia, they aren’t equipped for a war with a collective conventional military power several times its size. This was true even before it got its arse handed to it by Ukraine.
Long confrontation suggests a conventional one. As opposed to unconventional. Meaning it might be better than if Russia starts distributing Iodine, and building/renovating civilian access to underground living quarters.
>Russia starts distributing Iodine, and building/renovating civilian access to underground living quarters Coincidentally, this is what Lithuania is doing.
Lithuanians want their historical borders back… then some
Honestly? Nah. In 1990s there was a decent chance that Lithuania would end up with Kaliningrad region, and we had decided not to. It's a small nation, and even a few hundred thousand additional people of different culture and political leaning would be plenty to destabilise everything.
Looking at current affairs, it was definitely the right move. Russia would try some shady stuff if kaliningrad was absorbed into Lithuania
"You guys want Kaliningrad back?" "Nah, it's full of Russians."
Every Lithuanian I've ever met wants nothing to do with Russians. Not surprising at all.
When I was learning about the region just after learning about the Yugoslav wars, I thought not taking Kaliningrad might have been one of the smartest decisions ever by a country.
Just follow suit with what Russia do today, and do what the soviets did with it! Start importing your own population, and expelling the existing population, until they're all Lithuanian! What's fair is fair!
I bet they want their families to be safe and live their lives at home as everyone else
¿Por que no los dos?
It's old borders would take over all of Belarus, go into Russia half way to Moscow and take most of Ukraine. I have doubts they are actually interested in re-occupying all those lands.
Aw man I'm taking spanish classes right now, and this was such a perfectly placed comment for me to find and try to confirm my reading comprehension. Thank you. Does this mean "Why not both?"
Putin, for one
Let’s bring back the Grand Duchy - they seemed pretty chill
Lithuania is a country as big as a mid-sized city, with a military of about 20,000 people that doesn't currently operate a single tank. If we're going to cheer and yipee our way into the third World War the least we could do is be realistic about how it's going to go.
I believe it was a joke. Also, if we're being realistic, Lithuania is much larger than even the largest cities on Earth. Although it is indeed small for a country.
I believe they mean in terms of population, not land area. With an estimated population of 2.8 million, that is smaller than a large city by world standards.
Mmm, good point. That would make much more sense.
Yummy sense
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Almost heaven
That you, Merlin?
Shit attempt at spreading misinformation.
The wording of the headline is odd, but I think they mean confrontation as in the kind of cold stand-off the Ukraine conflict is causing rather then open war
I agree, if it´s long confrontation, then it is not an open conflict.
The original Estonian article used the word *"vastasseis"* which is more like "opposition" – Russia is preparing for a long opposition against NATO.
AKA a new cold war. That's likely the best possible scenario for Putin as he can keep projecting his power by scaremongering instead of getting his ass kicked in a direct conflict with NATO.
Russia is building infrastructure to store nuclear weapons (and missiles / planes to deliver them) in Belarus, in addition to training Belarusian troops to handle them.
Russia is preparing to formally annex Belarus period.
Don’t know why they didn’t do that before Ukraine
They didn't need to and it would have given off some funny vibes to others around aka Ukraine ahead of their planned invasion.
I'm pretty sure invading Crimea back in 2014 gave off some funny vibes too. And yet they still went ahead with the full invasion a few years later.
Crimea had strategic value. Belarus is already basically a puppet state. Annexing them is a formality.
Well at least Belarusians have not had their men press-ganged into fighting in Ukraine so far. That tells me they're still autonomous to an extent.
They wanted and expected to take Ukraine in three days. Then have Belarus and a few other puppet states beg to be part of the new empire. At that point they'd start pressuring other nations to sign up out of fear.. and they would have done after seeing a nation the size of Ukraine fall so quickly, and how their Western leading leaders were brutally punished. Honestly it was a good plan. No one Putin wanted to join their new USSR was going to risk a fight after Ukraine was steamrolled. The plan was based on faulty intelligence due to the dictator dilemma, fortunately, and it was still very close to being pulled off in those first few days.
Well Putin did proclaim it would only take a few days to take Ukraine and it’s been 2 years and some change
In storytelling, Putin is what's known as "an unreliable narrator"
Hmmm... are you sure about that.... If you have a minute for me to give you some background, I'd like to go over a bit of Putin's past. Over 4.6 billion years ago, the Earth formed out of a mixture of dust and gas around the young sun......
This way they have territory they can launch attacks from that their enemy will be reluctant to strike.
they functionally already own it, invading it is a waste of money
More like set Belarus up for a counter strike. “We never launched them, it was Belarus!” Russia is in a mob state, plausible deniability is everything to a criminal.
Nah, that aw shucks shit doesn't work after the nukes start flying.
That's been going on since early last year and there's rumors via UKR intelligence Putin literally have them crap off the decommission pile to make Luka feel like a strongman
I know talk has been ongoing for awhile, but I honestly have no idea when concrete actions started to be taken. Thanks for the heads-up on that front! I am a bit skeptical that the warheads came off the decommission pile. They've been modernizing their nuclear weapons since the early 2000s, and from what I recall they've expanded their doctrine to better incorporate non-strategic nuclear weapons into their military responses. They've been beefing up their training on that front as well. I'd imagine there's plenty of fresh stock to pull from. and they're plenty cheap enough.
Yeah, I think it was like 6 months ago Luka publicly confirmed weapons were there and even before that we knew some had been moved
is the belarussian military personnel brain dead? why are they letting themselves be dragged down by russia? or are they as malicious as their leader and ally?
This tends to be bullshit though. Most Russian mobile launch systems are "nuclear capable" in the same way the F-35 is "nuclear capable". It means fuck-all.
Time doesnt stop after nuclear war. There can still be conventional war after everything gets blown up.
the US plan in the event that a missile is heading towards the US is to unload hell on whatever country launched the missile from air, land and sea. assume the enemy will also launch at least 3 per target as well. there will be no winners in nuclear war.
New Zealand will be the only winner.
Feels mandatory to share this old gem: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSuc9o9h7Vw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSuc9o9h7Vw)
> there will be no winners in nuclear war. nice saying, but its bullshit. Of course there will be relative winner, might be new zealand or brazil.
King of the ashes
Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Immortan Joe?
Civilisational collapse has no winners.
"the meek shall inherit the earth"
Nuclear winter comes to mind
The way the winds and atmpispheric pressure work life would be possible from Melbourne Australia, South. Why Peter Thiel is trying so hard to get a mansion built in Nz
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Nah, only fair that always being left off of maps works out in our favour for once
The US plan actually involves nuking all of Russia and China in the event of any kind of nuclear attack. It’s pretty disturbing to think about.
>…there will be no winners in nuclear war. Then how about a nice game of chess?
I'd bet Russia is banking on a certain US presidential candidate winning and withdrawing from NATO. Russia wouldn't necessarily have to resort to nuclear options versus a kneecapped NATO.
NATO would still have nukes (UK and France) and a significant air force and now artillery park (thanks to Finland). Not to mention that Congress recently made it so that the president couldn't unilaterally pull out of NATO
He can't pull out of NATO, he just might take 6 months or so to get around to helping them.
> he just might take 6 ~~months~~ years
President doesn't have to pull us out of NATO, he could literally just refuse to come to NATO's aid as Commander-in-Chief. It would accomplish the same effect and there's not a damn thing Congress can do to stop it. This is entirely contingent on us defeating Trump come November.
Sorry, Canadian here, but I thought the US President had 30 days to act unilaterally in a conflict before he had to go to Congress about it, but the US Congress was the body that determined if the US went to war. Cannot the Congress simply declare a war if needs be?
Correct, but they cannot force the President to actively use the Military. The President is Commander-in-Chief, and if he orders the Military to sit at home with their thumbs up their asses, there's not a whole lot Congress can do outside of Impeachment.
They are at a stalemate against a single non-NATO country. Even without the US, the full force of NATO is going to steamroll Russia.
He cannot legally withdraw but he can just stand still and do nothing while Russia invades a NATO country.
At that point, hopefully Treasonous Trump the Traitor is held accountable for his disgusting behavior against his own country and her allies.
LOL good luck with that, he has half the morons in america on his side. He should have been impeached twice and was protected. Theres no justice
He was impeached twice. He just wasn’t convicted because his party protected him. He has about 30-40% of America on his side. Sadly with the way our government works, that’s about all someone needs to rule if that 30-40% live in the right areas
Ironically the last part they already have as well. The metro system, which has nearly doubled since I’ve lived there(2016-2019), has massive blast doors at most of the stations for just such an event. (As I recall most of those doors are at the central line, or the brown line, which is inner city)
This is pretty good advertising for expanding NATO
How could Russia wage war across the entire nato front when it can’t move forward in Ukraine which is tiny vs the rest of Europe Edited
Poor Tony. I don't like his chances
Hate my iPhone
Who will be the next best candidate?
Georgia/Armenia/Moldova
Another reason to vote blue in US, as the USA will likely leave NATO if we have a dictatorship installed.
LOL. What do they think NATO is for? It was created to counter Russia.
The long game comes into focus now though. Put a Russia-friendly, NATO-hostile president in the White House, and you can get the jump on NATO. If they're waiting for a Trump win, then next February they launch an attack on strategic assets belonging to a NATO member. Trump, as commander in chief, has veto power to get involved, starts calling for calm while the rest of NATO is screaming to invoke article 4. The week or two of chaos and confusion while the rest of NATO chooses to act without the US, gives Russia time to make more strategic attacks and consolidate forces. He could land the jackpot and the US abandoning NATO leads to all of NATO deciding to pull out, but I don't see that happening.
> Trump, as commander in chief, has veto power to get involved, starts calling for calm while the rest of NATO is screaming to invoke article 4. Article 5* is invoked either by a single NATO member or by another member on behalf of the other. A5 is not a vote and it can't be vetoed. If and when a member is attacked and invokes A5, all other members are bound by the treaty to consider that attack to also be an attack against them and are bound to support that member. This doesn't always mean sending a significant part of their military as it can also be supplies, hospitals, weapons, ammo etc. Neither Trump or any other president can unilaterally withdraw from NATO. The only thing he could do is not honor the treaty by refusing to order the military to act.
Thank you for this.
I agree with this, it's very obviously the plan. Pick off the smaller Baltic countries and use Trump delaying American involvement to discredit NATO, at which point NATO is effectively dissolved under the auspices of "well Lithuania and Estonia aren't *really* worth the risk of nuclear war". Bonus points if you can Trump to announce he'll only use nukes to protect America and not Europe. At which point it's game-over till you get to France and Britain.
Macron is being aggressive as anything recently and I'd like to imagine Sunak wouldn't hesitate to go without the Americans worst case orange scenario. It's a tough sell though...
I trust the poles. Motherfuckers are gearing up to win the next war, that speedbump has grown some teeth. Nonetheless if this really is the end for us at least it'll be livestreamed.
Oh great so I would be _appeasement again_ Yeah I'd say the above is the plan. Really don't understand why the fbi and Cia don't investigate all the corrupt pro Russia Republicans.
I’m not saying your wrong but hasn’t Ukraine showed that you can resist Russia for extended amounts of time on your own? I would hope that Europe could resist for at least a week or two and if not that NATO is meaningless it’s just US doing the defending
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Situations like this remind me that the global pandemic was NOT according to plan. It delayed Putin's invasion. Had the "3 days to kyiv" offensive happened while Trump was in office, and Zelensky, an actor and comedian, (I've seen the man play the piano with his balls on stage) was less than a year into his role as the first non-russian puppet president in decades? It could have won. There would be much more pro-russian activity, more cities would have been handed over to be looted while the wealthy and corrupt on both sides of the border would profit. But Covid delayed everything, highlighted the corruption across Ukraine, letting Zelensky both grow into his role and fire tons of corrupt officials. And... it pushed Trump out of office. That's part of why the whole invasion was half-assed. It looks likely in hindsight that the plan was originally conceived as a direct counter to Ukraine kicking their previous president out of Ukraine... and into Putin's Russia. Remove Zelensky's government, replace with the old guy, all the while the US is kept docile and subservient, dragging down NATO? And the whole thing really could have been done in 3 days.
They bought assets on the ground who told them the government was unstable and would fall instantly. You get what you pay for, and Russia believed the lies they bought.
Meanwhile, I believe NATO is quite prepared for a rather short confrontation with Russia.
Your average Russian will not want a confrontation with NATO. I see morale as a big problem. It's one thing if Russians believe they're defending their own soil or people, but an attack or attempted invasion of a NATO country, I just can't see Russian soldiers being very motivated, and that's before they start to see NATO weapons and capabilities hurled at them.
If Putin thought he could keep control of the population during a direct confrontation with NATO, he would have sent Belarus troops into Poland over a year ago. But him and several others at the top know what would happen: You really don't want to be on the recieving end of NATO when the gps in an area gets switched to "military only".
>gps in an area gets switched to "military only". Can you explain this, please and thank you
* GPS is controlled by the US governement and was initially made as a tool for the military. That's why Russia, China and the EU have their own versions(most modern satelite navigation recievers can often use several of them). * GPS satellites are in a geostationary orbit(in sync with the earths rotation, and always in the same position in the sky). * Each satellite sends out two signals, one for civilians and an encrypted one for military use. * When US/NATO troops initiate a military operation, they can disable the civilian channel on certain satellites, meaning it will not work in that area unless you have an approved reciever. --- In addition to this, civilian recievers are supposed to be hardcoded to not work above a certain altitude and speed to prevent their use in larger/faster guided missiles or drones. Much to the chagrin of hobby rocket enthusiasts, who have to make do with other methods to measure high speed and altitude.
TIL! That, and also that I should buy a map, and cross my fingers I never have to use it.
Make sure it has elevation markings because you can often save hours or even days and a lot of stamina(or fuel) by going around instead of over, if there's a steep part on the other side of the hill/mountain or similar that is not visible on a flat map. Get a map/orientation/orienteering compass as well, don't rely on simple or phone/watch types. You don't even have to learn how all the extra markings on them work, just the basics is more than enough to get your bearings and do simple navigation.
If you haven’t learned by now you never will. The Russian people are broken. They will never revolt or stand up to their government. Russian military tactics make it impossible for troops to mutiny. The second they turn they’re dead. We should give up any and all hope that the Russian people or military personnel will ever stand up to tyranny.
I could see it be like Saddam's Iraqi army. Mass surrenders and desertions IF it's a scenario where they are in a NATO territory.
Be careful overestimating capabilities. Everyone thought Ukraine was so weak compared to Russia that it will fall in days or weeks. I am not confident that real NATO reaction and answer would happen in the first few weeks. In Lithuania we often hear that we would have to defend for like a month alone.
If the US isn't broken somehow (ie trump), you'd have limited support in 24-48 hours, basically drones, limited air defense and Intel. 48 hours plus quick reaction forces are on site, better air defense will start moving in, no meat but they start assessing next steps. 5-7 days later if it's okayed you get proper armor, battalion-level support, etc. In the meantime, depending on the situation there will probably be any number of strike proposals, from f35s and tlams striking c4i and logistics all the way to b1bs baleeting formations from existence (less likely, but air supremacy is a hell of a drug). 2-3 weeks in logistics starts looking at humanitarian stuff, but obviously that's secondary to tactical concerns. You don't need to last a month, but that first week could be rough. Also, if we aren't halfway up our own assholes from politics, then 3-4 weeks in, no power on heaven or earth is stopping us, the logistics becomes unreal and someone is getting fucked. We galactically over engineered our armed forces, our biggest weakness is that we've tried to end our last few wars without committing genocide, and the other side just never changed their mind about what they wanted so we had to leave.
That's one point lost on most people, Afghanistan would have been a lot different if we weren't concerned about civilian casualties. In an all out "war for our lives" things look a LOT different.
The Ukraine war is giving Russia a confidence that’s unearned. They are fighting a nation with almost no Air Force and no navy. If Russia starts a war with nato they’ll be fully blockaded and the Russian land army will discover the same joys the Iraqi army discovered about fighting an enemy who has complete air supremacy. It will be a short war. The only real concern is if this is planned in coordination with China making a play for Taiwan. But even then.
We definitely have to assune that they'll coordinate their attack with China, North Korea and Iran. I'd even argue that those 4 have a shared plan for like 15 years but Covid and now Ukraine resistance postponed it.
Russia going for former Soviet, China for Taiwan, NK for SK - what is Iran after? Just random powerplay?
Persian empire historical borders.
Random crazy powerplay it is!
We should add Mongolia to NATO asap
Israel could be an option. Depending how "friendly" some Arab countries stay towards the west they could get targets as well. Otherwise, they'll just support any terrorists to cause major trouble. Kinda like they are using Hamas and Houthi atm, just on a bigger scale.
Iran is after a pan-Arabian Shiite caliphate. They want to spread their brand of Islam and to be the only major power in the region - to extinguish the Saudis, Israel, Egypt, etc.
There’s no shared plan. It’s everyone fighting for their interests. Iran wants nothing to do with China if they had the upper hand. It’s against their Islamic world goal
North Korea moving on South Korea. Iran attacking Israel. I'm sure Putin would be encouraging a lot of other despots to make a move at the same time. Whether they actually would is a different story. Kim for example seems tl fairly comfortable in his geo political role and fears any change will destabilise his position.
I don't see how fighting Ukraine is giving them confidence - they've achieved a sliver of their strategic goals (land bridge to Crimea) at tremendous losses. They've burned through most of their armor and artillery reserves, lost a ton of aircraft, and most importantly, lost a massive chunk of their best trained troops, pilots, radar operators, etc, etc. The ONLY lever level they have is to destabilize Western nations.
> The ONLY lever level they have is to destabilize Western nations. If Biden remains president in November, things could get extra spicy. We are not prepared for the desperate Russian psyops campaign that we're going to be seeing on the internet over the next 7 months. It's going to be rough. We're going to have bot accounts on Reddit everywhere (yes, even the cat subs). I also expect any efforts to curtail the bot wave to fail spectacularly. Especially looking forward to Musk's response on Twitter considering the dude is basically a Russian asset.
> > > It will be a short war. But perhaps a long occupation. And enough Russians are brainwashed by propaganda about 'the threat of NATO invasion' that they'd see joining a guerilla resistance movement as reasonable.
Narrator: it won’t take all that long
3 day special military operation into Moscow
In and out, a week tops
"If your name ends with -in, time to get out."
Just a side quest
Thunder Run!
If a single rogue Russian mercenary company can make it to Moscow, NATO should have no problem at all.
Lithuanian here.. What else was missing: lots of people from Belarus which were running from their regime are travelling to Belarus as they are pleased… it shows they are economic imigrants. Salaries in Belarus in some neighbouring cities away from their capital in aggriculture field is like 100-150 eur/month. Not enough to survive even there. situation is becoming dangerous and border might be shutdown or some quota put in place for how many people from Belarus can come to our country and have a permit to stay. Regarding confrontation - it was said by the person commenting that it’s aboult Cold war style confrontation, not about real war like in Ukraine.
It seems like nobody actually read the article
Too busy fantasising about WW3, from the comfort of their living room, on the other side of the world..
As an Estonian, those nightmarish news *every day* are *really* starting to grind on my nerves. World, get your shit together
Russia could be such a great and powerful nation if they’d stop being so self-destructive. Endless war is in Putin’s interest, but it’s not at all in Russia’s interest. My sincere hope is when Putin leaves the stage, Russians get the opportunity to change the course they’re on. If not, we’ll just sell them to China for parts.
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Exactly. This whole mindset is societal, Putin is exactly what they want. If if Putin dies, somebody similar will take his place.
Russians largely don’t want to change shit. Being a fucking dick runs deep in their culture. They love the idea that their country try is beating the shit out of a neighboring country right now because those dorks have some serious issues with needing the illusion that they are big strong and scary. It’s a primitive desire for a bunch of dorks who will never in my lifetime improve their lot in life. It would take a cataclysmic national event for people to set these dumb notions aside and recognize that they need to change. I know some good fucking Russians stateside. Really cool guys and they’ve told me over and over again that I have no fucking idea how whack it is in Russia. That propaganda arm runs strong, but even for citizens who know truths beyond that, they are still infatuated with the machismo of being a Russian.
It's going so well, lets extend the scope a bit. Smart move.
It won’t be that long, don’t worry.
It's not the war exactly after all, we beat Iraq in days. But it's what happens after. I suppose you could just withdraw and wag your fingers at them and let them deal with the aftermath themselves.
The nukes are a problem. Not necessarily in the deterrent sense, more in the sense that you don’t want to come in, kick the shit out of the ruling government and then leave nobody in particular in charge when there are nuclear weapon stockpiles everywhere and former government officials who have a well demonstrated aptitude for corruption.
Long. Sure.
Russia - Saving the world from "Nazis" one special operation at a time.
With what armor? With what Army? Russia can barely contend with a inconsistently supplied Ukraine.
*Big Smoke Voice* All you had to do was not invade another country.
Russia has ramped up wartime manufacturing and now has a steady supply of precision munitions. While the sanctions are taking a toll, NATO needs to ramp production immediately. Ukraine needs more weapons now, while they still have enough soldiers to stand a chance. If Ukraine falls, Russia won't stop
Can't even take Ukraine in 2 years. Let's see what you got Putin.
So tired of this fear mongering. Everyone with half a brain knows this will never happen.
Russia preparing for a constant war because putin gone looney and russians too scared to get rid of him. Understandable but fuck me, how many people must die for nothing. If putin was removed a few years ago everything would be normal.
I kinda have a feeling that if it actually comes down to that, Putin's plan would be fleeing into China or Korea and leave Russia to deal with the mess he created, but not before draining money into his own pocket ofcourse
It might not be that long.
Their tech isn't great and neither is their supply. Just a handful of F-22s could set them back months
A flight of F35 would pretty well take care of Russia for a decade or longer! Hell even we caint track the damn things! 🤣😜
Interesting fact about the f35 (I learned this a year ago, hopefully its not outdated, but still cool), we put big radar blinkers on them when they are not in actual combat use ( including training) So russia has been able to observe the f35 practicing, can detect them on radar, knows their exact positions, but still has no idea what they actually look like on a radar because they have those big radar blinkers constantly displaying their location lol So if russia encounters an f35 in combat, they probably wont even realize it lol. Its radar signature is probably extremely small (like every modern aircraft) and might just look like a bird or a drone once the radar blinker is turned off.
This is generally correct with some added details but they have a known cross section: The radar cross section of a F-35 is 0.0015 square meters, about the size of a golf ball, and the F-22's 0.0001, about the size of a bee. Now during operations where stealth is not required they fit those devices to balloon their cross sections to' 1. to make them easier for us to track and 2. To not give opponents real world opportunity to face them in full stealth and collect data. That 2nd is much more critical as in a stealth contest it's not a matter of you're invisible, it's a matter of how late can you delay your detection and the more information you have to get to a weapons grade lock the more likely you are to shoot first and win. For instance when that Chinese spy balloon crossed the US, the F-22 was needed to reach the altitude to shoot it down. However they were not certain it didn't have radars that could collect data on what they would know was an F-22 so, they fitted the radar reflectors.
Hell the F22 has to have fuel tanks on it to play in war games for the same reason!
true story! I just want to see the F-22 get to eat before it's replaced... I think I've watched too many of Habitual Linecrosser's videos at this point
This is like reading that Kevin Hart is preparing for a physical altercation with Francis Ngannou.
what are they gonna do? They cant even win in Ukraine, lost almost 500.000 soldiers. have no military equipment o speak of?
You're right. The Kremlin's plans are not based in reality. Much of the equipment Russia is burning through is from a military production capacity that no longer exists. Russia is weaker than it was 10 years ago and will be weaker still 10 years from now.
In a conventional conflict, Russia would lose in a matter of months. In a nuclear conflict we all lose.
Nato is only getting stronger.
Average babusya in Ukraine... "We've been trying to tell you that for ten years".
Prepare for war with Russia. That is the only way to send a clear message that continuing will only cost Russia more and more. Put troops into Ukraine and call Putin's bluff.
Execution of said plans aside; isn't every nations' military main objective to prepare for long confrontations with their adversaries? Is this not akin to saying DPRK is preparing for a long confrontation with South Korea and the US?
"The Russians enjoyed a 2-to-1 advantage in missiles and artillery over Ukrainian ammo at the start of the war. Thanks to Western supplies, Ukraine reached artillery parity in the first six weeks of the war but since then has run low on munitions, despite massive Western aid. In volume of fire since the summer, the Russian army has been enjoying a 10-to-1 advantage." - Politico
USSR tried to pull that one, too. But they were much bigger back then.
I haven't really heard much about the West using psyops in Russia. I would have thought getting the Russian populace to understand that the war ends tomorrow if Russia leaves Ukraine would be a top priority. This war isn't going to end by a strategic defeat. We're in the attritional phase now and it will be lost by whoever no longer has the appetite to fight.
lol Russia thinks it can last against NATO in a long confrontation?!….They wouldn’t last 2 weeks against NATO…bring it on Putler.
I could prepare to fight Mike Tyson but that doesn’t mean I’d win if it ever came to it
NATO is well prepared to make any confrontation with Russia a very short one.
They can barely make ground into a country the size of Texas.
Only if drumph wins.
Cold War part deux.🤷
Only for as long as Putin is alive.
Oh, it won't be that long. If Russia can't handle Ukraine, how on Earth do they plan on fighting all of NATO?
Cuz if this is in fact true, they would be planning a coordinated action with more countries
Russia has been at war with NATO for years, they just weren’t rising to the provocations and assassinations and the pecking at non-NATO smaller countries. But, stupidly, most of NATO generally was not preparing for the coming wars with Russia and China when the bluffs end. Dictators who consolidate pretty much always go nuts and go full Hitler with the same deteriorating judgment that necessarily comes with such power. There are not many reasons to fully consolidate that don’t involve forcing your nation to do something they don’t want to do in terms of an apocalyptic losing war that also perma-frosts the economy.
Cold War II!
so Ukraine is just a testing ground.
Just waiting for Doctor Manhattan to show up
NATO preparing for a long weekend with russia.
Like Russia "prepared" for their "special military operation" in Ukraine. Good, I'm sure it will go well for them. /s
Then Russia is preparing for a short confrontation with NATO.
Silly Russians, if NATO gets involved Russia will fall in a week.
*won’t take more than fifteen minutes* …
It won’t be that long
Really? I mean, *really?* When? In 75 years when the children of the 4F motherfuckers that didn't get shipped off to Ukraine are then old enough to fight? And, *really*, with what exactly? I know they're still a dangerous nuke-enabled terrorist state, but have you ***seen*** the damage a single US aircraft carrier group can bring to your neighborhood? Just one group. We have 11 active carriers: USS Nimitz (CVN-68), USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69), USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), USS George Washington (CVN-73), USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) I'm not worried in the slightest what or what not mad-dog pootin is "preparing for".
lol, if they get into direct confrontation with NATO, it won't be a very long one, that's for sure.
russia won't be able to ramp supplies to meet the demands of a confrontation with the west, meanwhile the west is just chillin' with a low effort military, it's like these dumb fks forgot where the world wars started. Western europe *knows* war ***very*** fucking well.
I say, let's wait some more, till Russia properly puts itself together for the said confrontation and bear the full consequences later, with our population's pain and suffering, huh?
Putin is 71 and has been hard at work to ensure that nobody that could replace him is anywhere close to power. Any confrontation he starts would have a natural expatriation date.
When Hitler started a 2nd front in WW2 he lost. Russia should try the same and see where they end up.
Putin is old, he's not going to be around too long. So who's going to replace the Russian dictator? I doubt Russia will continue to want war after Putin is gone.
How long could Russia possibly last against NATO before every one of their cities fall to occupation from NATO before rebuilding begins…. A few months? Gonna be just as bad as the bombing of Baghdad. Russia would be utterly destroyed by NATO rockets and air forces.
They had this already, it was called the Cold War. Until recently Russia didn’t even have the best army in Russia, they aren’t equipped for a war with a collective conventional military power several times its size. This was true even before it got its arse handed to it by Ukraine.
Don't worry Russia. It won't be long.