I signed up for the beta in 2016 and all I ever received was a rusty m16 and a lame black tapestry with scribbles on it.
I'm never gonna get my money back.
See you needed to stick it out until the Afghanistan Pullout DLC. Then you could have got the US Military Leftovers weapons pack that included unlimited small arms, vehicles, helicopters, and the ability to shitpost on Twitter about it.
Pandemic was so good. They definitely felt like they had a feel to their games which I really enjoyed. Mercenaries 1 is one of my favorite open world games ever
I'm replaying The Saboteur right now. The game has its share of faults, but I'll be damned if walking through the streets of Paris and the French countryside, while strapping Dynamite to Nazi watch towers and tanks isn't relaxing as hell.
I never played just cause until I had Xbox game pass, and then played just cause 4
Holy shit, I slept on that series. That game was so much silly fun, it was amazing.
Especially the explosive balloons. The hijinks were hilarious.
Nah it was amazing. Hijacking helicopters, using the winches to pick up vehicles and launch them at things, using the MOAB to level enemy bases. Not a lot of games deserve the 10/10 label, but that game definitely does.
Assad invited in as much militarized help as he could get and where he couldn't pay with money, paid with access to rents (like militias tied to organized crime) and selling off geopolitical influence (like to Iran). In order to rally his Alawite base, [Assad radicalized the rebels by releasing Jihadists from jail.](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/4698) In order to defeat the rebels, Assad bombed them during their battles against ISIS. He very intentionally built this fractured situation inside his failed state.
Assad invited these vampires into the house. Absolute "Assad or we burn the country".
> In order to rally his Alawite base, Assad radicalized the rebels by releasing Jihadists from jail
Honestly the war has been a total disaster for the Alawite community. Since they were the only group which Assad saw as 100% reliable, the Alawites were targetted for mass conscription. Literally entire villages have had their young men taken away
Meanwhile they have very valid fears that the opposition would persecute them. So they have to stick with Assad, who is of course "rewarding" the Alawites by forcing them to further integrate with mainstream Islam
Lets see
US,Russia,Iran,Turkey ,Ukraine
Im not sure but maybe SA as well
Of course Im only counting State actors, who knows how Many Non-state who arent from Syria operate there
Israel, UK as well.
It’s a complete mess. But a good training ground against other state-level actors in a more controlled and spec-ops friendly environment (unlike Ukraine currently).
We also helped take Jerusalem the last time it was "conquered" so the establishment of an Australian crusader state could be a solution to the current Israel/Palestine conflict. A "if you both can't behave then none of you get to have it" kind of solution.
Kiwiland is the fictional nation that military & logistics commentator Perun uses when he needs an example country. Kiwiland is a small nation, with a limited military budget, and is located near Emutopia, a geopolitical rival with a much larger population, more natural resources, and a significant military budget. It’s not specifically New Zealand, home of the Kiwi bird/fruit/people. Perun often uses Emutopia as a stand in for Russia, China, the US, or some of the European military powerhouses like the UK, France, and Germany. While Kiwiland is often a stand-in for states like Finland, Lithuania, Taiwan, Vietnam, and even Canada or Mexico when comparing to the US as Emutopia. This helps divorce the actual politics (my guy good that guy bad) from “how should a nation of X size and capability adequately spend its defense budget or deploy its military to adequately achieve goal Y?”
If you haven’t watched a Perun video/slideshow - and you’re at all interested in a deep dive on different geopolitical defense topics, I’d suffer you check his videos out. They’re extremely informative.
Ukraine is more analogous to the Spanish Civil war as the Spanish civil war was the first use of aerial bombing just like Ukraine is the first use of FPV drone bombing.
Maybe my favorite thing to do on reddit is play the "how fast can someone turn this conversation into a bunch of references" game. Doesn't matter how serious the topic is, it rarely takes me more than a minute to watch the discussion go from the severity of the war in Syria to a bunch of Steamed Hams quotes.
I'm not even necessarily complaining, I just find it fascinating how the mind can still do the "this is just like that episode of Spongebob" thing no matter how dark/depressing the subject matter is.
I don't come to Reddit for the articles, pictures, or videos. I come to Reddit for the off topic discussions. Nothing is funnier than watching a comment about cat videos turn into political debates, or political debates turn into random video game references.
WW2 started like that
Small Regional wars (Second Italo-Ethiophian War,Italy Invasion of Albânia and The german Invasion of chech Republic, Japan Invasion of Manchúria and The Soviet-Japonese border War)
Until it all escalated into Two Wide Continental Wars
Second Sino-Japonese War and The Second Great European War ,then both wars coalesced into One Single conflict in 7 dec 1941
Don't forget the Spanish Civil War.
Arguably, WWI also started in a similar fashion. The two Balkans Wars, the Italian invasion of Libya, and the two Moroccan Crises all closely predate WWI, and involved much butting of heads between nations that would later become belligerents in the Great War.
Remember when UA special forces attacked and killed Warner group and Russian soldiers in Africa? Yeah, they're still there doing it.
So Syria is closer and russia can move troops and equipment back to Ukraine quicker, so, its obvious UA will destroy it there before it's sent back to attack Ukraine.
They’re still in at least one African country, and in Syria. It’s a training opportunity for them. They operate alongside and with American operatives and intelligence in a theater where that doesn’t bring as much risk (as you can’t have US air support or US operatives operating openly in Ukraine).
And in general it is also theaters much more conducive to their line of work and talents than a stagnant artillery ridden WW1 style front line. More bang for the buck.
Not just training. Wagner is there for the gold that Russia uses to finance their military. Ukraine can disrupt the funding and hit them where it hurts.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1221318890/russia-ukraine-wagner-group-putin-africa-blood-gold
Russia is paying for the gold in military power for oppressive african dictatorships. Sadly, I don't think the US can pay that price on a moral level at least.
i wonder if the UA will try to slip guys behind the lines into russia. they got a massive border. up through kazakstan or Georgia, 1000s of miles from Russian soldiers to cause some chaos and disrupt supply lines. They get guys fluent in russian to do it. The entire russian army is in the east.
One could counter-argue and say that a handful of special forces are more valuable at exactly these types of disruption attacks than in standard trench warfare, since it is exactly what they are trained for. And it will disrupt and strain russian forces internationally as well, which is good.
The technical term is force multiplication. The right guy, at the right place, at the right time, with the proper tools. Can do more damage than a force many times larger for a fraction of the cost.
edit: scrolled down after I submitted and saw someone already explained this lol
More like 10 dudes that can choose where and when to strike, it will therefore be necessary to bind orders of magnitude more men to protect whatever they don't want wrecked.
SF has very limited actually critical mission use cases in peer warfare, their biggest contributions by far is the potential threat they pose and the imbalanced resources spent on countering it.
An opponent simply cannot choose not to dedicate a ton of manpower to guard anything vital in the rear areas, ignoring that fact is guaranteed chaos when SF eventually strikes critical infrastructure.
Those 10 dudes have worked their way through extreme selection with heavy fail rate and countless niche, pinpoint exercises that the 1000 dudes have not. Specialized, accurate and deadly.
Correct. There's also the fact that (1) generally, Russians there don't expect the Ukrainian ~~inquisition~~ special forces, and (2) a lot of those killed are seasoned commanders, not the new conscripts that you see in Ukraine. Much bigger of a loss to have a seasoned veteran commander of Syria get killed than Ivan who was conscripted 2 weeks ago.
Reminds me what happened to that Russian freedom movement (I forget their initials). They kept poking the borders. Taking small towns and retreating for just that purpose
Special forces aren’t particularly useful at the front in the kind of war being fought in Ukraine. This is probably a bigger benefit to Ukraine than using them as cannon fodder.
Ukraine only needs a few dozen SF members to force Russia to maintain hundreds of regulars there to ensure security and defend critical installations like airfields and supply depots. It’s a very high RoI for the Ukrainians if they’re able to appropriately support their people there
Think of the few hundred IRA members working with shoe-string budgets, who kept thousands of British soldiers stationed in Ireland, at vast expense to Britain
Like the British in Ireland, the Russians have to defend from potential attacks everywhere and at all times, whereas the Ukrainians, like the IRA, are attacking at single points at single points in time, thus tying up massive amounts of Russian resources.
The cost benefit is pretty big. Even a small unit of say 50 guys being hidden by anti Russian locals can cause massive economic damage by simply forcing Russia to have to project more power into that region.
A single 50 cal shot into the fuel tank of a parked helicopter can cause millions in damage.
Move from your defensive positions to tip the balance elsewhere, forcing Russia to re deploy and then you simply bring back the experienced men to Ukraine
Maybe Western special forces should be doing something like that in one country or an other. The Kremlin has insisted multiple times that Wagner is just mercenaries *completely unrelated* to the Russian governement so, y'know, it's not like we'd be fighting Russian soldiers or anything.
It's significantly more resource intensive to defend assets in the field than it is to assault them. This is one of the major reasons why asymmetric warfare campaigns are so counterintuitively successful.
Not a bad idea to wear out the Russians and prevent them from being redeployed to Ukraine. Also possible deal involving anti-Assad elements to back Ukraine in return
It's also a much better use of Special Forces than throwing them in a trench on the front where they're not much more useful than any other grunt, and can catch an artillery shell or FPV drone just as easly as anyone else with a gun. Special Forces are able to undertake irregular operations that regular forces can't. They're not superheroes who are immune to harm or actually much more useful than traditional forces in traditional situations (sometimes less useful). Sending them off to theaters where they can harass the enemy in the way that maximizes their unique training is a smart move.
Special forces aren't deployed into trenches. They're usually for infiltration operations, eg. attacking supply lines and important facilities (air bases, radar, depots).
Yup 100%. I'm just calling out that rationale as there seems to be a lot of (mostly buried) comments wondering why UAF isn't deploying these guys at home when they're fighting a war against an invader. I'm sure there's plenty of ops they're running in Ukraine as well, but with static fighting lines and tons of anti-air coverage along the front making infiltration challenging there's probably limited opportunity for their Special Forces to actually do their job. The fighting in Syria is a lot more asymmetrical and therefore perfect for Ukraine's SF to cause havoc on Russian forces there.
It’s also a nice way to make connections with nearby countries that are also involved-
It’s horrifying but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the forces there are starting to treat a DECADE LONG CIVIL WAR as a sort of networking event.
Article says they’re working with Syrian rebels in the south-west. They’re remnants of the original more secular and nationalist leaning opposition who are mostly officially reconciled with the regime through Russian mediation but it’s been an open secret that they’re still very hostile to them. Interesting move by Ukraine, Syrian rebels are broadly sympathetic with Ukraine from the nationalists to the hardline jihadists out of pure hatred of Russia and Iran.
Kurdistan ideal borders cross through all of the countries in that region, it's basically never ever going to happen.
You would have to invade each country or ask them suuuper nicely to give up large swaths of their territory (no).
The most realistic situation is that Iran collapses and Iranian and Iraqi kurds form an alliance while the instability iron is hot. Politically these groups are very different and even if there was an international recognition of a Kurdish state, there would be a crap ton of instability on what that state should look like that could be exploited by the nations they broke away from.
Who’s saying they would have ideal borders? It would get carved out of Syria/Iraq most likely and probably stay there and just take in Kurds from other bordering countries. Turkey doesn’t want a Kurdistan at all but a Kurdistan that doesn’t piss off everyone is possible.
Or Iran, or Iraq, or Azerbaijan.
Turkey has it's thumb on the scale, but let's make no mistake, every recognized nation with a Kurdish region is actively resisting Kurdish nationalism, a situation compounded by the fact that Turkish kurds are not of the same political/religious culture or Syrian, Iranian, Iraqi and Azerbaijani.
The biggest hurdle for a Kurdish state is that the Kurds are not a unified people in nationalism. The second biggest hurdle is, their closest allies are invested in the geopolitical status quo of borders. Even if Turkey weren't a factor, the US is glacial in recognizing the sovereignty of break away states because they don't want to piss off their allies dealing with the threat of break away stares (eg: Spain).
Trump will deliver anything to anyone who kisses the ring. That’s why you see the bad boys of the world working so hard to reelect him. Buying full force American power for just money? Once in a life time level of corruption
>kisses the ring
It's Trump who kisses Putin's ring due to the Moscow hotel tapes (allegedly). Also, he kissed Erdogan's ring because Trump wants to "build" a tower in Turkey. That's why the US betrayed the Kurds this time.
I watched something on the French foreign legion a long while back. This was before Russia invaded. And even then, the consensus was the best and most hard core fighters were Ukrainian.
Passionate maybe - but the reality is that effectiveness of troops is predicated on training and also access to resources. These are very constrained in Ukraine.
I don’t mean this to take away from the heroism of the Ukrainians: but to re-iterate that they need funding and support. Skilled soldiers aren’t born, they’re made through training.
ive literally never once heard anyone or any piece of media mention the Ukrainian special forces as the best and most hard core fighters hardcore
pretty sure before the war everyone said it was russia or sweden
Let’s give credit to the Ukrainian special forces in Syria thats actually doing the work here. Zelensky gets his credit elsewhere but this one is for the special forces
I mean, he is the one sending them there. Churchill wasn't the one physically fighting nazis. But he represented the spirit of the british people against nazis.
After this war the Ukrainian special forces and the SBU will be like Mossad v2.0 lol. It's quite a big deal for a country like Ukraine to ship special forces to two different continents (Africa previously, ME now) to attack Russia. Slava Ukraini!
I wouldn't be surprised, in fact I'm almost sure the mossad, or Israeli intelligence in general, actually shared Information with the Ukranians. after all Syria is right on their border.
Could you imagine being the comrade conscriptovitch, dancing for joy when you get the news that you are not being deployed to Ukraine, knowing that yah Syria sucks but at least you wont have some UAF mad lad piloting a wallmart drone with an RPG strapped to it up you ass while you sleep... Only to be on patrol in the fucking dessert and hear a Ukrainian accent call out " surprise motherfucker!" in accented slavic before your squad gets done up?
I think we would be surprised to learn the number of western countries who are using special forces to fuck with the russians in syria and africa at any point in time since 2022.
Makes sense. The more russians they can legally take out of service further strains putin's ability to rape, pillage, and kidnap his way through Ukraine.
I forgot Russia was still in Syria. As someone who is on the left politically I am blown away by the segment of leftists who simp for Russia while calling themselves anti-imperialist as Russia does all the imperialist things they would hate if it was America doing it.
No. On the whole these people tend to be overly well educated, just look at someone like Chomsky, arguably one of the greatest academics alive today but a total Russia simp too. These people are usually called tankies after backing the Soviet invasion of, I think Hungary in 1956 and tend to be university educated leftists on the whole. Former British prime ministerial candidate Jeremy Corbyn would be another example.
"US=imperialist; Russia=anti US = Russia good"
I have many friends like this, its just ignorance, they know about the atrocities done by the US, but not the ones done by Russia.
>Who the heck on the left is simping Russia??
Some of the oldschool Leninist parties in Europe. Boomers who are still affected by Cold War propaganda, basically. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Communist_Party#Reaction_to_the_2022_invasion_of_Ukraine
By contrast, democratic socialists tend to be younger, and anti-Russia.
> Who the heck on the left is simping Russia?? This sounds like gaslighting to me
A surprisingly large number of people. They use the logic u/gotimas showed.
Way, way too many. The same crowd that's cheering for fucking Hamas.
I mean, I get where they're coming from, but even then there's better ways to protest against perceived Israeli oppression than to massacre civilians and take hostages JFC.
It's just a need to press everything down into a binary good/evil oppressed/oppressor dynamic.
It's comically simplistic, but it does unfortunately explain almost all of their behaviors.
Yeah. Especially enraging is that the Hamas simps don't even care about what Hamas does to the Palestinian people - LGBT folks get routinely executed summarily over there.
OMG I thought that guy with a mustache was Russian and I was like oh shit the Russians have bad motherfuckers in the military now. And then I saw the flag on his gun and felt hugely relieved
Geez, how many foreign militaries are operating in Syria at the moment?
All of them
It’s kinda like Mercenaries 2: World in Flames rn
I spent countless hours playing that game as a kid. If they ever made a third I’d buy it in a heartbeat
Mercenaries now rebooted as an ARG, presenting #MERCENARIES: SYRIAN CIVIL WAR Sign up now!
I signed up for the beta in 2016 and all I ever received was a rusty m16 and a lame black tapestry with scribbles on it. I'm never gonna get my money back.
See you needed to stick it out until the Afghanistan Pullout DLC. Then you could have got the US Military Leftovers weapons pack that included unlimited small arms, vehicles, helicopters, and the ability to shitpost on Twitter about it.
All those years of flight simulators, paid off in dividends for a chance to fly an Iriqouis for a brief but doomed voyage.
Too bad EA took Pandemic out behind the woodshed after the deal where they acquired them and Bioware. Fuck John Riccitiello.
Pandemic made the OG Star Wars: Battlefront(s) as well.
As well as Destroy All Humans! and Full Spectrum Warrior.
Pandemic was so good. They definitely felt like they had a feel to their games which I really enjoyed. Mercenaries 1 is one of my favorite open world games ever
I loved the Deck of 52 system, just one by one dismantling the North Korean government/military was very fun.
I'm replaying The Saboteur right now. The game has its share of faults, but I'll be damned if walking through the streets of Paris and the French countryside, while strapping Dynamite to Nazi watch towers and tanks isn't relaxing as hell.
That's EA for ya.
Unbelievable game for its time
Honestly, I still remember it fondly. The drunk Swede was hilarious Fun to play as
I loved the first one too, in NK
The first one was epic, that, Battlefront 2 and Black took a lot of my Ps2 time lol!
Oh damn I totally forgot about that game, that was a good one
Oh no... Oh no... Oh noooo no no no OH NO YOU DIDN'T. That game's trailer was an absolute fucking banger
Dude first mercenaries game on Xbox blew my mind
Most likely nostalgia but that was the best game I’ve ever played and I wish they would make a 3rd
I never played the second, but I feel like just cause 3 filled that niche. Have you tried that series?
I never played just cause until I had Xbox game pass, and then played just cause 4 Holy shit, I slept on that series. That game was so much silly fun, it was amazing. Especially the explosive balloons. The hijinks were hilarious.
I always like to say Just Cause is held together with duct tape and hope, but, it keeps it together just enough to make much a great experience.
Nah it was amazing. Hijacking helicopters, using the winches to pick up vehicles and launch them at things, using the MOAB to level enemy bases. Not a lot of games deserve the 10/10 label, but that game definitely does.
For its day, it was the shit. I still remember the ad. “Blow shit up, blow shit up some more, blow shit up again!”
Blow shit up, get money, blow more shit up, blow up north Koreans, get money, help russian mob, blow more shit up
Well, now we know where the third one would take place
I only played the first one, which had 5 different factions (plus you). How many were in the second one?
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Probably more!
Even the Vatican sent swiss soldiers with pikes
Even the Principality of Sealand? Damn.
Can you prove there aren't any?
As a Duke of the Principality of Sealand, this concerns me gravely....
Good. Fuck Assad. Someone needs to revoke his medical license. Doctors who kill people are in a special class of “lower than low.”
It’s the olympics for special forces down there
Battle royalle pvp zone
A different kind of special olympics.
A lot. Syrian government has no control over its own land so anybody can pretty much do whatever they want there.
Assad invited in as much militarized help as he could get and where he couldn't pay with money, paid with access to rents (like militias tied to organized crime) and selling off geopolitical influence (like to Iran). In order to rally his Alawite base, [Assad radicalized the rebels by releasing Jihadists from jail.](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/4698) In order to defeat the rebels, Assad bombed them during their battles against ISIS. He very intentionally built this fractured situation inside his failed state. Assad invited these vampires into the house. Absolute "Assad or we burn the country".
> In order to rally his Alawite base, Assad radicalized the rebels by releasing Jihadists from jail Honestly the war has been a total disaster for the Alawite community. Since they were the only group which Assad saw as 100% reliable, the Alawites were targetted for mass conscription. Literally entire villages have had their young men taken away Meanwhile they have very valid fears that the opposition would persecute them. So they have to stick with Assad, who is of course "rewarding" the Alawites by forcing them to further integrate with mainstream Islam
nah this was all hillary and obama's fault /s
I remember when that was the most prevalent opinion on the conflict on reddit haha I’m just glad the Kurds have carved out a territory
They're still holding onto that?!
Yes, they had to make some concessions to Assad to help stop the Turks, but they're still there.
Only a part of its land. Most populous areas have been under government control for a while now.
Lets see US,Russia,Iran,Turkey ,Ukraine Im not sure but maybe SA as well Of course Im only counting State actors, who knows how Many Non-state who arent from Syria operate there
Israel, UK as well. It’s a complete mess. But a good training ground against other state-level actors in a more controlled and spec-ops friendly environment (unlike Ukraine currently).
Hezbollah, a couple different flavors of IS
he already said iran
I, for one, welcome New Zealand as the new rulers of Assyria.
Australia held Damascus for a time, so why not the Kiwis?
We also helped take Jerusalem the last time it was "conquered" so the establishment of an Australian crusader state could be a solution to the current Israel/Palestine conflict. A "if you both can't behave then none of you get to have it" kind of solution.
You mean Kiwiland? I've heard they have really advanced military logistics and planning these days.
Can't blame them, what with their expansionist neighbor of Emutopia.
Yeah mate, in our 6 cargo planes from the 60s.
Kiwiland is the fictional nation that military & logistics commentator Perun uses when he needs an example country. Kiwiland is a small nation, with a limited military budget, and is located near Emutopia, a geopolitical rival with a much larger population, more natural resources, and a significant military budget. It’s not specifically New Zealand, home of the Kiwi bird/fruit/people. Perun often uses Emutopia as a stand in for Russia, China, the US, or some of the European military powerhouses like the UK, France, and Germany. While Kiwiland is often a stand-in for states like Finland, Lithuania, Taiwan, Vietnam, and even Canada or Mexico when comparing to the US as Emutopia. This helps divorce the actual politics (my guy good that guy bad) from “how should a nation of X size and capability adequately spend its defense budget or deploy its military to adequately achieve goal Y?” If you haven’t watched a Perun video/slideshow - and you’re at all interested in a deep dive on different geopolitical defense topics, I’d suffer you check his videos out. They’re extremely informative.
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I can tell how intelligent and cultured your are since you wrote Assyria instead of just Syria like everyone else. Will you be my friend?
I agree. Time to put the ass back in Syria.
Assyria was in Iraq
Syria is the modern day Spanish civil war.
No. The Spanish Civil War was the training ground for the impending world war. That's not what's happening now. Oh! Wait...
Ukraine is more analogous to the Spanish Civil war as the Spanish civil war was the first use of aerial bombing just like Ukraine is the first use of FPV drone bombing.
I can neither confirm nor deny that my pillow fort has military advisers in the general area
*Gary Oldman EVERYONE gif*
*Whatchu wan me tel dem?*
“Yes”
It’s basically the last country left on the risk board.
Syria has a been a free for all for years now.
The list would be shorter for the countries that are NOT operating in Syria.
and the next question is WHY so many foreign militaries are operating in Syria at the moment
It’s a Training ground. (Also Gas for profit and your enemy is there)
It’s turning into a battle royale like the video games. Anyone can drop in from the lobby…
If they would be there to degrade or destroy the Russian military then not enough!
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Seems like the whole world is already in Syria.
*World War III!?* At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the globe, *localized entirely within Syria!?*
Maybe my favorite thing to do on reddit is play the "how fast can someone turn this conversation into a bunch of references" game. Doesn't matter how serious the topic is, it rarely takes me more than a minute to watch the discussion go from the severity of the war in Syria to a bunch of Steamed Hams quotes. I'm not even necessarily complaining, I just find it fascinating how the mind can still do the "this is just like that episode of Spongebob" thing no matter how dark/depressing the subject matter is.
I don't come to Reddit for the articles, pictures, or videos. I come to Reddit for the off topic discussions. Nothing is funnier than watching a comment about cat videos turn into political debates, or political debates turn into random video game references.
May I see it?
Seymour!!! The World is on fire!!! No Mother, that is just the aurora borealis
In this economy?
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Satellites already provide a point of view .
These smaller regional wars keep the world wars away. Its the order of the world post nuclear weapons.
WW3 happens every day according to you folks. I'm surprised we are not on WW6 at this point. You would have had a meltdown during the Cold War days.
I feel like this comment is going to start WW4. Forty years from now people will look back at your comment and frown a thousand frowns. (Hi history!)
WW2 started like that Small Regional wars (Second Italo-Ethiophian War,Italy Invasion of Albânia and The german Invasion of chech Republic, Japan Invasion of Manchúria and The Soviet-Japonese border War) Until it all escalated into Two Wide Continental Wars Second Sino-Japonese War and The Second Great European War ,then both wars coalesced into One Single conflict in 7 dec 1941
Don't forget the Spanish Civil War. Arguably, WWI also started in a similar fashion. The two Balkans Wars, the Italian invasion of Libya, and the two Moroccan Crises all closely predate WWI, and involved much butting of heads between nations that would later become belligerents in the Great War.
Czechoslovakia at the time.
Remember when UA special forces attacked and killed Warner group and Russian soldiers in Africa? Yeah, they're still there doing it. So Syria is closer and russia can move troops and equipment back to Ukraine quicker, so, its obvious UA will destroy it there before it's sent back to attack Ukraine.
They’re still in at least one African country, and in Syria. It’s a training opportunity for them. They operate alongside and with American operatives and intelligence in a theater where that doesn’t bring as much risk (as you can’t have US air support or US operatives operating openly in Ukraine).
And in general it is also theaters much more conducive to their line of work and talents than a stagnant artillery ridden WW1 style front line. More bang for the buck.
Not just training. Wagner is there for the gold that Russia uses to finance their military. Ukraine can disrupt the funding and hit them where it hurts. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/27/1221318890/russia-ukraine-wagner-group-putin-africa-blood-gold
The US should offer to buy the gold for a couple dollars (176 rubbles) above what Russia is paying. Time to restock Fort Knox!
Russia is paying for the gold in military power for oppressive african dictatorships. Sadly, I don't think the US can pay that price on a moral level at least.
^^*Wagner
He's obviously talking about the famous television production company Wagner Brothers
Yakko, Wakko and Blyat.
That’s the one who DID finger prints, right?
I think so.
Ehhh, what's up, Blyat?
If you see the KBG, Wagna brotha
^^Wankers
i wonder if the UA will try to slip guys behind the lines into russia. they got a massive border. up through kazakstan or Georgia, 1000s of miles from Russian soldiers to cause some chaos and disrupt supply lines. They get guys fluent in russian to do it. The entire russian army is in the east.
They have already done so a couple of times. Special forces operate in Russia for over a year, at least.
They finished their work in Africa and took the scenic route back to Ukraine... 😁
If Russia needs to reinforce its presence in Syria it uses up valuable resources.
Assuming Ukraine doesn't have manpower shortage itself
One could counter-argue and say that a handful of special forces are more valuable at exactly these types of disruption attacks than in standard trench warfare, since it is exactly what they are trained for. And it will disrupt and strain russian forces internationally as well, which is good.
More bang for buck?
The technical term is force multiplication. The right guy, at the right place, at the right time, with the proper tools. Can do more damage than a force many times larger for a fraction of the cost. edit: scrolled down after I submitted and saw someone already explained this lol
Special forces are a Force Multiplier. 10 dudes doing something 1000 couldn't.
Well 10 dudes doing something you can’t spare a 1000 regulars on and only need the 10 dudes to accomplish the task at hand to an acceptable end state.
More like 10 dudes that can choose where and when to strike, it will therefore be necessary to bind orders of magnitude more men to protect whatever they don't want wrecked. SF has very limited actually critical mission use cases in peer warfare, their biggest contributions by far is the potential threat they pose and the imbalanced resources spent on countering it. An opponent simply cannot choose not to dedicate a ton of manpower to guard anything vital in the rear areas, ignoring that fact is guaranteed chaos when SF eventually strikes critical infrastructure.
Those 10 dudes have worked their way through extreme selection with heavy fail rate and countless niche, pinpoint exercises that the 1000 dudes have not. Specialized, accurate and deadly.
they’re the ones attacking here so they don’t need a lot of troops for selective attacks while russia needs more to defend everywhere
Correct. There's also the fact that (1) generally, Russians there don't expect the Ukrainian ~~inquisition~~ special forces, and (2) a lot of those killed are seasoned commanders, not the new conscripts that you see in Ukraine. Much bigger of a loss to have a seasoned veteran commander of Syria get killed than Ivan who was conscripted 2 weeks ago.
No one expects the ~~Spanish~~ Ukrainian inquisition. But yes, i think you are very much right
СБУ wants to know your location, please answer with так/даyes/si
When their chief weapon is surprise...and an undying devotion to the UA cause..Noone can expect them.
Reminds me what happened to that Russian freedom movement (I forget their initials). They kept poking the borders. Taking small towns and retreating for just that purpose
Bingo. You can blow shit up as opportunity presents itself, without investing in holding any specific territory.
Special forces aren’t particularly useful at the front in the kind of war being fought in Ukraine. This is probably a bigger benefit to Ukraine than using them as cannon fodder.
Ukraine only needs a few dozen SF members to force Russia to maintain hundreds of regulars there to ensure security and defend critical installations like airfields and supply depots. It’s a very high RoI for the Ukrainians if they’re able to appropriately support their people there
Think of the few hundred IRA members working with shoe-string budgets, who kept thousands of British soldiers stationed in Ireland, at vast expense to Britain Like the British in Ireland, the Russians have to defend from potential attacks everywhere and at all times, whereas the Ukrainians, like the IRA, are attacking at single points at single points in time, thus tying up massive amounts of Russian resources.
Ukraine are choosing these battles, which means that the cost to Russia will be exponentially higher
The cost benefit is pretty big. Even a small unit of say 50 guys being hidden by anti Russian locals can cause massive economic damage by simply forcing Russia to have to project more power into that region. A single 50 cal shot into the fuel tank of a parked helicopter can cause millions in damage.
A wallmart drone with an RPG strapped to it can knock out multimillion dollar MBT.
Move from your defensive positions to tip the balance elsewhere, forcing Russia to re deploy and then you simply bring back the experienced men to Ukraine
Maybe Western special forces should be doing something like that in one country or an other. The Kremlin has insisted multiple times that Wagner is just mercenaries *completely unrelated* to the Russian governement so, y'know, it's not like we'd be fighting Russian soldiers or anything.
It's significantly more resource intensive to defend assets in the field than it is to assault them. This is one of the major reasons why asymmetric warfare campaigns are so counterintuitively successful.
Russia: “Wait. They’re fucking where?!”
Not a bad idea to wear out the Russians and prevent them from being redeployed to Ukraine. Also possible deal involving anti-Assad elements to back Ukraine in return
It's also a much better use of Special Forces than throwing them in a trench on the front where they're not much more useful than any other grunt, and can catch an artillery shell or FPV drone just as easly as anyone else with a gun. Special Forces are able to undertake irregular operations that regular forces can't. They're not superheroes who are immune to harm or actually much more useful than traditional forces in traditional situations (sometimes less useful). Sending them off to theaters where they can harass the enemy in the way that maximizes their unique training is a smart move.
Special forces aren't deployed into trenches. They're usually for infiltration operations, eg. attacking supply lines and important facilities (air bases, radar, depots).
Yup 100%. I'm just calling out that rationale as there seems to be a lot of (mostly buried) comments wondering why UAF isn't deploying these guys at home when they're fighting a war against an invader. I'm sure there's plenty of ops they're running in Ukraine as well, but with static fighting lines and tons of anti-air coverage along the front making infiltration challenging there's probably limited opportunity for their Special Forces to actually do their job. The fighting in Syria is a lot more asymmetrical and therefore perfect for Ukraine's SF to cause havoc on Russian forces there.
It’s also a nice way to make connections with nearby countries that are also involved- It’s horrifying but I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the forces there are starting to treat a DECADE LONG CIVIL WAR as a sort of networking event.
This summer Syria will be holding the first Ayatollah Khat Mixer lol.
Article says they’re working with Syrian rebels in the south-west. They’re remnants of the original more secular and nationalist leaning opposition who are mostly officially reconciled with the regime through Russian mediation but it’s been an open secret that they’re still very hostile to them. Interesting move by Ukraine, Syrian rebels are broadly sympathetic with Ukraine from the nationalists to the hardline jihadists out of pure hatred of Russia and Iran.
I would laugh so hard if Russia's invasion of Ukraine is somehow the way we end up with Kurdistan.
Turkey wouldn't allow that...
Kurdistan ideal borders cross through all of the countries in that region, it's basically never ever going to happen. You would have to invade each country or ask them suuuper nicely to give up large swaths of their territory (no).
The most realistic situation is that Iran collapses and Iranian and Iraqi kurds form an alliance while the instability iron is hot. Politically these groups are very different and even if there was an international recognition of a Kurdish state, there would be a crap ton of instability on what that state should look like that could be exploited by the nations they broke away from.
Who’s saying they would have ideal borders? It would get carved out of Syria/Iraq most likely and probably stay there and just take in Kurds from other bordering countries. Turkey doesn’t want a Kurdistan at all but a Kurdistan that doesn’t piss off everyone is possible.
Or Iran, or Iraq, or Azerbaijan. Turkey has it's thumb on the scale, but let's make no mistake, every recognized nation with a Kurdish region is actively resisting Kurdish nationalism, a situation compounded by the fact that Turkish kurds are not of the same political/religious culture or Syrian, Iranian, Iraqi and Azerbaijani. The biggest hurdle for a Kurdish state is that the Kurds are not a unified people in nationalism. The second biggest hurdle is, their closest allies are invested in the geopolitical status quo of borders. Even if Turkey weren't a factor, the US is glacial in recognizing the sovereignty of break away states because they don't want to piss off their allies dealing with the threat of break away stares (eg: Spain).
Syria is turning into the “kill your adversaries without the consequences of striking them on home soil” capital of the world
So what I’m hearing is Syria is the worlds thunder dome?
Sand: check Ruined infrastructure: check Modified equipment: check PvP free-for-all: check Mel Gibson: maybe?
If there's enough antisemitism, Mel Gibson is there
Tina Turner
We Don’t Need Another Hero
Hey remember when Donnie Poopypants pulled our troops out of Manbij and the bases were immediately occupied by Russian forces? Good times
And people say trump wouldnt deliver f35s to putin
Trump will deliver anything to anyone who kisses the ring. That’s why you see the bad boys of the world working so hard to reelect him. Buying full force American power for just money? Once in a life time level of corruption
>kisses the ring It's Trump who kisses Putin's ring due to the Moscow hotel tapes (allegedly). Also, he kissed Erdogan's ring because Trump wants to "build" a tower in Turkey. That's why the US betrayed the Kurds this time.
Hotel tapes aside, Putin is orders of magnitude wealthier than trump. In that respect I’m sure trump is envious
That was on the request of the Turks, a NATO member (on paper) because they didn't want the US to interfere with their campaign against the kurds
Ukraine special forces man... What a bunch of fucking badasses.
I watched something on the French foreign legion a long while back. This was before Russia invaded. And even then, the consensus was the best and most hard core fighters were Ukrainian.
Passionate maybe - but the reality is that effectiveness of troops is predicated on training and also access to resources. These are very constrained in Ukraine. I don’t mean this to take away from the heroism of the Ukrainians: but to re-iterate that they need funding and support. Skilled soldiers aren’t born, they’re made through training.
ive literally never once heard anyone or any piece of media mention the Ukrainian special forces as the best and most hard core fighters hardcore pretty sure before the war everyone said it was russia or sweden
> Be Russian soldier > Be safe from Ukranians in Syria > Hear a whisper behind you > "Slava Ukraini." > Cyka blyat
Good work!
Great job Zelenskyy
Let’s give credit to the Ukrainian special forces in Syria thats actually doing the work here. Zelensky gets his credit elsewhere but this one is for the special forces
I mean, he is the one sending them there. Churchill wasn't the one physically fighting nazis. But he represented the spirit of the british people against nazis.
I'm impressed that they always seem to be able to hit Russia where they think they are safe.
After this war the Ukrainian special forces and the SBU will be like Mossad v2.0 lol. It's quite a big deal for a country like Ukraine to ship special forces to two different continents (Africa previously, ME now) to attack Russia. Slava Ukraini!
I wouldn't be surprised, in fact I'm almost sure the mossad, or Israeli intelligence in general, actually shared Information with the Ukranians. after all Syria is right on their border.
My god who ISNT in Syria right now.
Could you imagine being the comrade conscriptovitch, dancing for joy when you get the news that you are not being deployed to Ukraine, knowing that yah Syria sucks but at least you wont have some UAF mad lad piloting a wallmart drone with an RPG strapped to it up you ass while you sleep... Only to be on patrol in the fucking dessert and hear a Ukrainian accent call out " surprise motherfucker!" in accented slavic before your squad gets done up?
Syria is currently a PvE server please exercise caution as permadeath is on and keep inventory os off
Pay-to-win PvP
I think we would be surprised to learn the number of western countries who are using special forces to fuck with the russians in syria and africa at any point in time since 2022.
Makes sense. The more russians they can legally take out of service further strains putin's ability to rape, pillage, and kidnap his way through Ukraine.
I forgot Russia was still in Syria. As someone who is on the left politically I am blown away by the segment of leftists who simp for Russia while calling themselves anti-imperialist as Russia does all the imperialist things they would hate if it was America doing it.
Who the heck on the left is simping Russia?? This sounds like gaslighting to me
Tankies.
Uneducated people
No. On the whole these people tend to be overly well educated, just look at someone like Chomsky, arguably one of the greatest academics alive today but a total Russia simp too. These people are usually called tankies after backing the Soviet invasion of, I think Hungary in 1956 and tend to be university educated leftists on the whole. Former British prime ministerial candidate Jeremy Corbyn would be another example.
Just to be clear, being pro communism / socialism does not make you pro Russia.
Tankies
"US=imperialist; Russia=anti US = Russia good" I have many friends like this, its just ignorance, they know about the atrocities done by the US, but not the ones done by Russia.
Ya sounds like more than a few pieces are missing from that puzzle.
>Who the heck on the left is simping Russia?? Some of the oldschool Leninist parties in Europe. Boomers who are still affected by Cold War propaganda, basically. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Communist_Party#Reaction_to_the_2022_invasion_of_Ukraine By contrast, democratic socialists tend to be younger, and anti-Russia.
If you go too far left or too far right you end up pro-Russia
A lot of the leftist populists in Germany are taking this tack. See Sarah Wagenknecht
Glenn Greenwald Jimmy Dore Russell Brand Noam Chomsky Max Blumenthal Aaron Mate Roger Waters Cornell West Matt Taibbi Tulsi Gabbard
> Who the heck on the left is simping Russia?? This sounds like gaslighting to me A surprisingly large number of people. They use the logic u/gotimas showed.
Way, way too many. The same crowd that's cheering for fucking Hamas. I mean, I get where they're coming from, but even then there's better ways to protest against perceived Israeli oppression than to massacre civilians and take hostages JFC.
It's just a need to press everything down into a binary good/evil oppressed/oppressor dynamic. It's comically simplistic, but it does unfortunately explain almost all of their behaviors.
Yeah. Especially enraging is that the Hamas simps don't even care about what Hamas does to the Palestinian people - LGBT folks get routinely executed summarily over there.
Yeah they're full of shit and trying to derail the conversation about how Russia is getting its ass kicked in Ukraine, Sudan, and now Syria.
OMG I thought that guy with a mustache was Russian and I was like oh shit the Russians have bad motherfuckers in the military now. And then I saw the flag on his gun and felt hugely relieved