https://twitter.com/Roger_Moorhouse/status/1630237930257256448?t=kGgttocbLaVaPc-fIZEocw&s=19
Russian tradition? America has the same tradition. Black troops were overrepresented in Vietnam and more likely to be in the infantry and get killed or maimed compared to white conscripts.
And of course if you were to look a similar US map for the US wars of the last 20 years DC and Manhattan would be blue and the providences would be red and orange. The elites don’t fight in wars, they send the poors.
Can you provide one?
I think the US is different in that it’s not provincial - just that the poors are sent to die, while the rich aren’t. I think for Russia it’s more based on ethnicity (as well as economic status), but in the US, we’re happy to send poor white and blacks to die (although you’re right that in 20th century wars commanders were more willing to sacrifice back soldiers, but don’t believe that is still the case).
As an example, I don’t think the US elite cares if poor people from DC die as opposed to poor people from Arkansas, so long as it’s nots their families required to do any fighting.
Of course. I’m sure there are poor people from Moscow too that are on the front lines in Ukraine. Just that elites are of course concentrated in Moscow and the Russian elites won’t be fighting any more than American elites fight in US wars. Trying to frame this near-universal truth about war as some sort of uniquely Russian tradition is just laughable though.
I wasn’t really saying that US officers in Vietnam were more careless with black soldiers’ lives than white. I’m sure some were but that’s probably not why more black soldiers died in the war. Just that blacks were more likely to get conscripted, and then more likely to get put in the infantry. Were they also more likely to get the short straw on this patrol or that assignment? Maybe, I don’t know. Probably.
While I don’t think it’s a ‘uniquely’ Russian tradition, they very much have quite the history of mistreatment and brutality towards ethnic minorities and to act like it’s just a big coinkydink is absurd.
Am I acting like it is a coincidence? I’m saying the US and most other states throughout history have done the same thing. Saying it’s a Russian tradition is just propagandistic nonsense. The marginalized in any society always pay the highest price in war.
I almost always hate population cartograms, but using one as a base for a per capita statistic is especially egregious. Adding a rainbow hue representation is the icing on the cake, my morning is now ruined. This war MUST end.
I don’t think there’s anywhere near the disparity in who is in and dies in the US army as there is in that chart.
I agree with SenorKeeed that the US should go back to hiring foreign mercenaries for combat roles. I am sure these Siberians will work cheap and we won’t get tied into providing VA benefits for those that survive.
You should Google Russification sometime. Might help putting 2 and 2 together.
It was a suggestion because you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Don’t bother responding.
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America rules, Russia drools imo.
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Hit dog will holler.
Russia is recruiting directly from prisons and clearly using those bodies as cannon fodder. Not sure why the notion that its racially cleansing its population as well is such a stretch of the imagination.
In the interest of stopping what is a weird meltdown to a pretty obvious connection to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Russian history:
Russia has a long history of ethnic brutality.
They also have a history of cultural genocide.
They also have a history of actual genocide.
Putin plays on traditional rhetoric (imperialism, Russian Orthodox church, being a dictator, domineering stances over other East Slavs, saying Ukrainians are the same people because Russia ate them once) habitually.
Etc. I’m on my phone eating breakfast
It’s a trivial connection to make then when Russia conscripts lots of random Kamchatkans and Buryats and Karelians etc. from thousands of miles away instead of ethnic, cultural, and religious homogenous Russians that are like, right there, that it’s on purpose and in line with historical Russian aims.
Did I get baited? Welp.
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That you think that I don’t know or agree with all of this is ridiculous. My “weird meltdown” was because you were being a condescending prick towards me out of the blue for no reason. If you want to have a conversation that’s fine but why would you be surprised that your one or two sentence posts telling me what an ignorant moron I am weren’t received well?
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I feel like if a war goes on for a year it should be decided by penalty shots.
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