What's next?, next war Romanians could be part of

CN can say "Dracul nu e atat de negru" but there is still a "drac" in the picture, irrespective of colour. Saying that "drac" is blue instead of black does not give protection from what "drac" can do.
Radu

I really believe that it is important to see how it comes to that conclusions. Because are some parts of battle tactics.

AFAIK Vocea Rusiei talked about the defeat of the Romanian Airforce in 30 minutes.

I really believe that it is important to see how it comes to that conclusions. Because are some parts of battle tactics.

Rubbish! This article is like that joke "curat pusca si vorbesc prostii". CN dedicated most of his time and the whole of his website to apocalyptic articles about the might and evil of Russia. He kept saying "the Russians are coming and they are bad" but now that the Russians seem to be on the move he says "the Russians are actually not that bad".
So the essence of the article is that the Russians are nothing to worry about. Neville Chamberlain took the same stance with Germany and look how well that worked out.
Romania's armed forces need a good dose of "desteapta-te romane" and get equipment, train, be prepared. This kind of "naah, there is nothing to worry about" stance is almost criminal.
Radu

Lets not fall in extremes, is not healthy to be overconfident and believe is nothing to worry about, but neither to start panic and believe is useless to fight and we'll be defetead imediatly.

Its obvious that nobody, not even NATO, can't (with conventional means) defeat us in 30 minutes, or 4 hours or whatever such sensationalist crap.
And as the former war against Serbia show it, an OK AA defence can still make some troubles to any attacker, and Russia is nowhere near the capabilities NATO had even back then, let alone now, and we are I think a bit better then Serbia was then in that regard.

An invasion, even if we take out of the picture NATO, to follow such absurd scenario, is again kinda impossible. Russia dont have a land border with us, need to come over Ukraine, and dont have the means and posibilities to make a landing from the sea and then advance.

Then Russia have an army about as 10 times bigger then ours, however the usual rule is that invader need a 3 to 1 ratio vs the defender if he wish to have clearer and bigger chances. But Russian army is spread from Crimea and Kaliningrad to Vladivostok and Kurile island and is hard to believe it will take about one third of it to invade just us.
Even so the chances for a quick win are very low, even because of our geography as well.

And then Russian army is just partially professional, they still rely on conscripts in significant part, compared with ours that is fully professional, have half of troops participating in various missions abroad and have quite a good training (at least quite many units), including common exercises and experience exchanges with allied armies.

Sure, an air attack might make us many troubles, at least in the first phase (and if is a surprise one) but a full invasion and a quick defeat I dont think is realistic at all (even if we wouldnt be in NATO, which is the first and biggest problem for the attacker). There is not just the invasion, but to control and maintain the teritory, which is another hard phase of the conflict if the enemy dont lay down weapons en masse and give up (which obviously wont happen anytime soon).
I think such scenarios are pushed forward as part of a psychological war, but in a way have good points too if they make our "dear leaders" wake up a bit and improve the defence fundings. Because we really need quite a lot of things (new fighter jets, tanks, APC/IFV's, some categories of misiles etc etc)

This post has been edited by udar on May 22, 2014 08:16 pm

That 3:1 "rule" doesn't necessarily mean the attacker is supposed to have an overall army 3 times larger than the defender's army otherwise he has no chance.

An army capable of efficiently using combined arms and having modern equipment can have significant superiority over the units of an inferiorly trained and/or equipped army even if the armies are numerically equal. The 3:1 ratio (could be more, could be less) is achieved at selected points of breakthrough, that local superiority being then exploited and replicated through maneuver.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on May 22, 2014 10:10 pm

3:1 sounds like an WW2 era concept and even then it mean the opposing forces were equal in terms of quality. British defeated the Italian forces in North Africa while being largely outnumbered. Also the US forces deployed for 2003 invasion of Iraq were outnumbered by Iraqi Army.

I fail to see how this 3:1 ratio can make a difference today.That stopped with Hiroshima where a bomber with a crew of a dozen delivered a bomb that killed tens of thousands of people including tens of thousands of soldiers.

But if you want to look at ratios, compare planes, tanks, battleships between Russia and Romania. You will soon discover that the ratio is more than 3:1 in favour of Russia.

Radu

This is more a theoretical discussion anyway

Sure, if we bring in consideration nuclear arsenals is obviously we (Romania) are in a clear disadvantage. Well, without NATO, but as we are part of NATO such "heat up" of war will bring the destruction of Russia too.

As a conventional fight (which is as well hardly possible to hapen, but in which NATO have the advantage theoretically) I dont see any Russian advantage over us (Romanians) regarding the training and prepardness. In fact Russian conscripts are very probably of a lower quality compared with our professional soldiers.

Then things become complicated, an invasion from east need to pass several rivers, Dniester, Prut, Siret, Danube (for this they need passage areas, bridges etc, heavy armored vechicles will need to concetrate in those areas etc), need to secure several important cities (so have to fight urban battles, one of the nastiest of all), and to secure the mountains were we'll have the upper hand vs almost anyone.
They will have a hostile population and a significant area they will need to control and maintain (counterinsurgency actions), in the same time still fighting in several areas in more clasic manner (mountains areas and other areas still controlled by our forces).
So yes, this will require significant forces as number.
The examples of Irak or WW 2 with British vs Italians are not too good here I think. Irak is mostly desert, which allowed a much clear picture of the forces around, and the use of superior weapons of Allies (from tank guns to artilery or cruise missiles), Allies had as well air supremacy and Irakian population was divided with many of them against Saddam.
Here you can come at night with some APC or even Humwees (or helicopters), shot few Spike AT missiles from the forest over the hill and guide them right in the enemy tanks at few kilometers distance (eventually check before his position using a drone), then retreat before he realise from where you opened fire (or they wont be able to hit back due to terrain anyway). And keep some Stinger AA missiles at hand (even Afghan mujahedeens received many of those, I am sure we'll have too a lot in hand if things come to that) if he try use helicopters (or attack planes) to counterattack

Better examples will be Vietnam or Serbia or partially even Chechnia, with a hostile population and geography and vegetation that help the defender and is against the attacker

If they will manage to come to that, and will be able to swallow enough losses. Russians arent quite anymore the WW 2 huge army, pushed forward regardless of losses, and with NKVD or other special teams behind, shooting anyone who retreat.

They have advantage in tanks for example, of course (and battleships too, yes) but those tanks are usable more free just in some parts of the country, and they need air supremacy as well, which is not that easy to achieve (and they need airports in Ukraine for that anyway). Not to mention they didnt managed to work that well in Georgia (coordination betwen forces etc), even if Georgians didnt had an Air Force and had a small AA defence, and Russians didnt used a numerous air force there (nowhere near the amount and coordination show by US or NATO in Irak war for example).

Then is need to think at logistics, psychological and informational war and so on. It wont be at all an easy tasks for anyone and the costs vs benefits will be a big problem (still dont know why they will ever want to conquer us and will be willing too to sustain lots of losses for that).

Sure, we can get lots of damages (especially due to enemy air force and missiles), and even have parts of teritory conquered for a while but I dont think anyone can score a quick win.
Not to mention that they need to conquer and control Ukraine (which at least half of it hate Russians with passion now) for that too (a sea landing that will bring a beach head and enough troops and vechicles etc to invade us by sea is not something Russia is able to do now).
And to consider us to not rearm and prepare at all until that, just keep the things as they are now, all the while Russians conquer Ukraine and start threaten us

But again, this is theoretical and even a bit absurd as we're part of NATO and an attack against us means a war with NATO, and thats no power able to win that, including Russia.
Still we need a much better equipped Army for any possible scenario (including troubles in Rep of Moldova, unconventional actions at home and why not, full scale war in general). Even if will act more like a detterent and hopefuly wont be needed to go to such war

This post has been edited by udar on May 23, 2014 04:35 pm

I noticed that Vice-President Biden visited Bucharest recently.
Romania has a long history of joining powerful allies that later of course had betrayed her interests.
We had a lot of problems with Ukraine as neighbor since 1991. We had even more problems with the Russians before that. Why should we care of any of them ?
The path that should be followed now is to do the minimum that is required from the duties of NATO member. Do not excel, do not try to make a step in front of the line.
Few weeks ago I read that the Czech Republic, a NATO member, eventually did not want to have a missiles shield installed on her territory.
And remember Bulgaria, a country that did not send one soldier to fight on the Eastern Front, and still has today the south of Dobrogea obtained with the help of Nazi Germany.

P.S: I expected from few weeks ago that Russia will make the move toward closer ties with China. The matter was so obvious, because not only Russia needed this. China needs more energy, but the coal she uses is already suffocating the dwellers of her cities (literally !).
When this move happened last week, it seems that many in the West were taken by surprise: politicians, political analysts, mass-media writers.
If this was such a surprise, what are they paid for ?

This post has been edited by Florin on May 27, 2014 01:27 pm

US foreign policy seems to be in a state of confusion.

I've read opinions ranging from "the first signs of US systemic collapse" to "Obama is deliberately driving US foreign policy into the ground" (a vast left-wing conspiracy).

Whatever the reasons, I think we are witnessing the end of the post-1990 idea that the US defines/polices the world order. Birth pangs of something new - most likely multipolarity.

I really do not believe this. On sea, the Americans had the most powerful fleet on the world, they had more military ships than all the 13th fleets who are next combined, but eleven on them are their alies.
On military equipment, they are on the top. On every other military asset, they are the first ones. Fifty years from now, they would be the primary military power.

You are focusing solely on military power, but that is just one element of overall power. Economic power is the more important element. To give you an example, the economy of the USSR was half that of the US halfway through the Cold War. So although the USSR managed to keep up militarily for a while, it eventually burned out because its economic base could not sustain the arms race.

You are wright, Imperialist, but do not forget that former USSR spend about to 25% on his GDP on military spendings, but USA only a figure lower than 5%. As you said, it kept up military for a while, but economic problems prevailed. That is the main reason that decides the winner in Cold War.

Exactly! The cold war was "lost" by the "Eastern Block" because it was "outspent" by the enemy. In order to keep up with the West, Warsaw Pact countries starved and deprived their own people until they could not take it any longer and exploded in a rapid succession of popular uprisings. Therefore, it was the "economy" not the "weapons" that "won" that "war".
But Today's America is not the same America. It cannot win the war in the same way. This America managed to place itself in total dependency of China. Twenty years ago, Chinese spies would have died to get their hands on, let's say, iPhone engineering. Now all they need to do is to look over the shoulder of the Chinese worker assembling it in China. China can cripple the US without firing a single shot. All they need to do is to stop the merchant ships leaving the Chinese harbours. Within a couple of weeks, America will run out of everything, from shoes and toilet paper to parts for their cars or computers and even weapon components. You can bet that even the most advanced US weapon has at least a Chinese-made part in it.
Think of it like a "siege". A castle that has all it needs (food, water, weapons) within its walls is strong. But a castle that has no water or food inside the walls and needs to get the water or food brought in from outside is doomed. America of yesteryear had everything "within the walls". But today, everything America needs (oil, cars, clothing, computers, food, you name it) comes from outside, mostly China. America willingly, for the sake of greed, managed to give away its main "strength": manufacturing. Twenty years ago, every American thing was "made in USA", now it is all "designed in USA and made in China".
Russia is still doing everything "in house".
Radu