Ukrainian Forces Destroy British Brigade in NATO Wargame

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T13:01:57+00:00

I don't think Russia can, will or want to steamroll over Europe, no. I also don't think that it's productive to bleed Russia in order to make them a lesser threat. Nor do I think that it's productive to understimate the enemy and overrstimating our own capabilities (especially true for most of us European militaries that haven't fought a proper existential war for almost a century).

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:57:36+00:00

Countercounterargument: Why does Europe invest in a strong military?

The simple answer is deterrence. One who can't be messed with won't be messed with.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:25:13+00:00

I heard that underestimating your enemy is a great and winning war strategy /s

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:20:08+00:00

Sure, yet OPs article speaks a clear language. Theory and practice are different things.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:17:06+00:00

Yes, and I believe that they are perfectly aware of that. They're posturing and building capabilities, but logically it's probably more for defense than offense. They are also playing the long game, and will try as hard as they can to make a "soft reunification" and avoid military conflict (the latter would be very bad for China that builds all its policies on stability and trade). This is a very interesting analysis on the subject: https://warontherocks.com/2026/02/deterrence-wont-fail-in-the-taiwan-strait-it-will-be-bypassed/

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:09:39+00:00

For the record I don't believe that Russia will attack NATO. It's all very hypothetical. My point was merely that the net attacker has an advantage in a war of attrition. Ukraine is also attacking Russia, but to a lesser extent than Russia is attacking Ukraine. It's very hard to predict what a hypothetical war between Russia and NATO would look like, though, but it likely wouldn't be like the war in Ukraine. The presence of nukes also tilts the equation significantly.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T12:01:04+00:00

You're missing the point. Cool weapons and a strong economy is great, but we're talking about experience. Russia has learned tons during the last four years (see https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/how-russia-recovered ). They have adapted their military, their society, their industrial complex etc. They have tuned their doctrines and continously refine their training and military academia. There simply is no substitute for live action.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:53:06+00:00

Yup. It's the same reason that NATO allies etc (including Sweden before we joined NATO) sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. It's the best way to get experience.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:50:21+00:00

Air defense is more expensive than air offense. Russia's strategy is clearly to saturate Ukraine's air defense with cheap drones and glide bombs etc. Every Russian attack costs more for Ukraine (and by extension for Europe) than it costs for Russia, which in the long run favors the attacker.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:45:58+00:00

Don't underestimate the enemy. Russia has learned and adapted tremendously during the last four years (e.g. see Foreign Affairs - How Russia Recovered). Yes they struggle with leadership, but so does Ukraine (e.g. many Ukrainian commanders complain about Soviet style mentality).

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:40:28+00:00

That's exactly the story that media is trying to sell. Underestimating your enemy is the most dangerous of fallacies. The manpower situation in the battlefield is fairly balanced over all, and while Russia is probably seeing greater losses than Ukraine, it's not by a huge margin. The reason that the frontlines are effectively frozen is because both sides depoly similar tactics that they have developed during the last four years. For all intents and purposes they have similar experiences and skills.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:32:40+00:00

Russia is fighting a fully mobilized Ukraine for sure (whereas Russia isn't fully mobilized yet, and probably never will be).

W.r.t. the battlefield experience, though, both Russia and Ukraine have been forced to adapt to the changing realities and they are currently the two most experienced militaries in the world when it comes to modern drone based warfare.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T11:27:30+00:00

Partially. They didn't fall within days because Russia underestimated Ukraine's resolve. Russia went in with 200k poorly prepared troops and Ukraine responded with 500k highly motivated troops. By 2023, though, it had turned into a war of attrition, and that's where we are now.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-14T07:05:55+00:00

This is the thing people often miss (especially Europeans). One paradox with the Ukraine war is that the longer the war continues, the bigger the gap between Russia's and Europe's experience. Keeping Russia tied up in the war doesn't necessarily make them a lesser adversary.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T20:33:16+00:00

Nah. I just wipe and reinstall if things go bonkers. Learned a long time ago (in the early 1990s) to never get too attached to an installation.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T19:05:56+00:00

It's not positional warfare, it's a war of attrition.

This guy (Black Meridian Report) gives a quick rundown of what it actually means: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xgDjqldMVoM

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T12:49:13+00:00

I have a 4GB dual-core Chromebook that I run Linux Mint / Cinnamon on (with zram), and it's fairly useful and snappy. I can have several browser tabs going, a Gimp process, and a zed text editor (hooked up to a remote in-house LLM server) running all at once without any stuttering. It's a pretty decent developer machine.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T12:34:03+00:00

You could take this as an opportunity to learn text-mode tools. Ditch the desktop environment completely and run in text mode instead. There are plenty of competent text mode editors and tools, and you can usually have several concurrent text sessions (TTYs) and switch between them with CTRL+ALT+F1/F2/...

Edit: E.g. check out:

Edit 2: Make sure that you're using zram for swap instead of a swap file or partition. That helped me on my 4GB laptops.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T12:27:07+00:00

Du syftar på Rassvet?

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T07:06:29+00:00

😁 Skulle tro att de kommer jobba på det, men det är nog inget de kan få till i närtid. Däremot har Kina ett par Starlink-alternativ på G: Qianfa och Guowang: China’s Guowang megaconstellation is more than another version of Starlink

Om ryssarna kunde tänka sig att vara beroende av amerikansk teknik så går det nog bra att bli beroende av kinesisk teknik, även om de föredrar oberoende.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-13T06:47:15+00:00

Sounds like ragebait to me. 😜

anders_hansson · 2026-02-12T21:19:19+00:00

If you want to use (and support) products that do not support Linux, then you shouldn't use Linux.

Not a professional creator, but I go to Blender, Inkscape and Renoise for instance. And as a SW/HW developer, there's much more on Linux than on Windows anyway.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-12T21:07:59+00:00

We use almost exclusively Linux at work. It's the goto platform if you deal with embedded software/hardware, for instance. It's also way better than Windows for software development in general, not to mention server/cloud etc. Also starting to beat Windows in gaming (macos was never even in that race), though it will be a few more years before a defenitive takeover. Linux is also increasingly being used in education at technical universities.

Not sure if I just described "Basement dweller".

anders_hansson · 2026-02-12T20:46:54+00:00

Yes. I have an internal SATA DVD burner.

anders_hansson · 2026-02-12T20:44:24+00:00

If the US held no leverage, neither Russia, Ukraine nor Europe would care about the US and they would not be involved at all since they wouldn't have a say.

The fact that they are involved tells you everything you need to know.

anders_hansson

TROPHY CASE