General Discussion Thread

[Belushi TD]

I'd like to read a good translation of the swiss article. Is it possible that someone in the press has run it as a "Look at what this idiot is doing now" rather than a serious attempt at giving him publicity?

Belushi TD

[Matt Wiser]

It wasn't a Swiss article: it was from Reuters. This clown gave a presser in Geneva, and tried to make a show of giving some kind of 'indictment" to the Security Council, insisting that the UN had to investigate these "criminal allegations" no matter how long it's been since the war, or who won. He picked a bad time: the UNSC Chair for this month is the British. Next month is our turn.

He probably got the press coverage because it was a slow day.

[Torten]

It wasn't a Swiss article: it was from Reuters. This clown gave a presser in Geneva, and tried to make a show of giving some kind of 'indictment" to the Security Council, insisting that the UN had to investigate these "criminal allegations" no matter how long it's been since the war, or who won. He picked a bad time: the UNSC Chair for this month is the British. Next month is our turn.

He probably got the press coverage because it was a slow day.

What other nations are permament members of the UN? The UK, US, France and the ROC?

[Matt Wiser]

Those four, and the Russian Republic.

After the Second Russian Civil War, the Russian Republic, the Far East Republic, the 'Stans, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Baltics, all were admitted to the UN (much to the Chagrin of the Rump USSR, which argued they had no such right). After the fall of the Rump USSR, the Russian Republic took over the Soviet seat on the Security Council.

[Wolfman]

Good to know, Matt.

[Matt Wiser]

Remember, the "Liberation Government" tried to be admitted on several occasions, and they failed.

[Wolfman]

They usually got the boot inside of twenty-four hours…

[Poohbah]

They usually got the boot inside of twenty-four hours…

The UN seemed to take New York getting nuked a tad personally.

So, reading an alternative history of the 1980s, ...But With a Whimper by Harry Turtledove. Basically, George H. W. Bush gets the Veep slot four years early at the Detroit convention, Mexico doesn't go Communist, and NATO somehow holds together in spite of the massive Soviet support for the Greens. Pershing II and GLCMs get deployed to Europe.

This somehow results in Chebrikov not getting the center seat when Andropov kicks the bucket (it goes instead to Chernenko--who has miraculously dodged dying of emphysema in 1983--and then to Gorbachev, who has been working improbable miracles in getting agriculture to work from 1982 onward), so we don't get Kosov heading the KGB and cooking the books on net assessment and convincing the Central Committee that America was up for grabs...

So, Gorbachev starts changing things (partly because of a war scare over a 1983 exercise codenamed ABLE ARCHER--oddly enough, there were plans to hold that exercise in the real world, but it got cancelled to try and hold NATO together), and Maggie Thatcher says that she could do business with him. (This is where Turtledove must have first said, "screw plausibility.")

Next thing you know, Ronnie Ray-Gun (who wins re-election in a landslide--he doesn't win Minnesota, but then again, you didn't end up calling Mondale Olaf over Mexico, either) is cutting deals with Gorby. Remember those Pershings and GLCMs that blew NATO apart? The ones Reagan burned all that capital on in 1983, and that caused a war scare earlier in the book? The ones that could blow Moscow off the map before anyone could tell a responsible adult what was happening?

Reagan negotiates a treaty with Gorby in 1987 that gets rid of them. The damn things are gone after less than five years of service. Meanwhile, the SS-20s go away, too. Even crazier, Ivan agrees to onsite inspection to verify that the missiles are destroyed and the production facilities are shut down.

Meanwhile, Reagan gives a speech in Berlin in 1987, challenging, "Mister Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!"

Two years later, the Wall comes down because the Interior Minister of East Germany is utterly incompetent and announces on national TV that all travel restrictions are gone. Two years after THAT, after Chebrikov's successor leads an absolute Charlie-Fox of a coup attempt (Chebrikov had gotten FIRED by the Supreme Soviet in 1988), the Soviet Union goes away. The flag gets hauled down for the last time on Christmas Day.

Whatever Turtledove was smoking when he came up with this one must've been some epically good weed.

[jemhouston]

They usually got the boot inside of twenty-four hours…

Generally, with steel toes ones.

[Wolfman]

They usually got the boot inside of twenty-four hours…

Generally, with steel toes ones.

And that right to their balls…

[jemhouston]

They usually got the boot inside of twenty-four hours…

Generally, with steel toes ones.

And that right to their balls…

Knees first, then the balls. If you hit the balls first, it's more work. Take out the knees and while they're on the ground you can get a batter arch on their balls.

[Matt Wiser]

Turtledove's a pretty good writer. I have his Southern Victory and Worldwar series-all of 'em.

One of the wildest parts of that book is having a war in the Middle East in 1990-91 because Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. led a multinational effort to kick them out. Schwartzkopf as Theater Commander, Powell as CJCS? Gorbachev telling his UN delegation to vote "Da" on the UN Resolution authorizing war? And it only took six weeks? (shaking head in disbelief)

[Poohbah]

Turtledove's a pretty good writer. I have his Southern Victory and Worldwar series-all of 'em.

One of the wildest parts of that book is having a war in the Middle East in 1990-91 because Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the U.S. led a multinational effort to kick them out. Schwartzkopf as Theater Commander, Powell as CJCS? Gorbachev telling his UN delegation to vote "Da" on the UN Resolution authorizing war? And it only took six weeks? (shaking head in disbelief)

The Iraqis politely stopping at the Saudi border and not grabbing Riyadh, al Jubail, and the Ghawar oil fields, followed by not molesting this massive force buildup for ALMOST SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE WAR STARTED? Come on!

And after pulling off an impossible strategic twofer triumph that turns America into an unopposed global hyperpower, President Bush's thank-you note is to lose the 1992 presidential election to Bill Clinton in a three-way race with H. Ross Perot(!)...I don't get that. Clinton got national attention because he proved himself under fire in 1985-87 governing a partially occupied state and leading from the front, and he also got an assist from the DC nuke wiping out most of the Democrat bench...

I mean, the questionable draft stuff he candidly discussed in his memoirs would have stopped him dead going up against Bob Kerrey without his WW3 experience working for him. (I don't begrudge him not wanting to go to Vietnam; my Dad said that it wasn't much of a war, but it was the only one they had.)

[Wolfman]

A lot of us at HQMC who have read that novel have shaken our heads at it. There’s a reason why I prefer S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse…

[Matt Wiser]

I talked to the OINC at the Army ROTC det at Boise State some time back, and he had read the book. His main issue was the Iraqis not launching some kind of spoiling attack on Day One or Day two, before they had been really pounded from the air. Instead, the book has them launching extended-range Scuds at Israel, trying to get the Israelis to come in, and no move on the ground for two weeks-and the Iraqis got their asses handed to them along the Saudi Coast at some border town. His main issue from the Allied side? The ground war stopped one day early before all the gates north had been slammed shut.

Still, it's interesting fodder for wargamers.

[Matryoshka]

Look, when you bring the Iraqi Army into a conversation, you’re talking about a force that spent the bulk of the Iran-Iraq War holding massive dominance in tanks, artillery, and aviation assets... yet so lacking in basic competence that they had to rely on multi-layered trench systems and chemical weapons to hold their ground against massed assaults by Iranian light infantry. Whose tanks with night-vision gear (even when it was operational, an ask in itself!) would simply sit there and watch as RPG teams manoeuvred to their flanks for kill-shots, not even engaging with coax or withdrawing to alternate positions. Whose jets simply dropped their bombs on their pre-briefed map-coordinates and didn’t react to any kind of tactical target or opportunity, let alone conduct BDA.

In the situation as-presented in the book, with the fundamental limitations and dysfunctions of the Iraqi military painfully vivid in their generals’ minds, any kind of major spoiling operation against Coalition forces would’ve had to be a one-day affair planned in exquisite detail by the Iraqi High Command and briefed and rehearsed repeatedly down to the platoon level. Why one day? Because that’s about as long as it would take for friction to really set in and the plan to become increasingly irrelevant. And you can guarantee that the instant it did kick off, Coalition countermoves would have turned it into exactly the kind of free-wheeling campaign of manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, of fleeting opportunity and seized-initiative deciding the outcome, that the Iraqi Army simply was not capable of fighting.

Yeah, there’s a lot of... dubious stuff in Turtledove’s works, especially ...But With A Whimper, but when you look at the historical record of the Iraqi Army, the ‘phantom spoiling attack’ gets a huge bye from me.

[Poohbah]

Well, caught the morning news here at the March Inn.

Boss-Ma'am was in the background of the coverage of the SecState's visit to Singapore. Tells me that this is a serious working trip and not the typical grip-and-grin.

[Wolfman]

Wonder what’s going on over there…

[Poohbah]

Wonder what’s going on over there…

There are some trade and security agreements that are coming due for renewal, and that's usually accompanied by review meetings to make any necessary adjustments.

[Wolfman]

And that requires Sophie’s presence? I think there’s something else going on that they’re not telling the public about…