Russian Foreign Policy

Very interesting re Mongols and Japan, thanks. And @Purple too for earlier link. I'd never figured the Mongols as a sea power - thought they were exclusively land based.

Every day's a schoolday, as they say.
 
@Baby boomer, the Koreans were the biggest ship builders in the world in the 1300’s. They are the biggest ship builders in the world now.
It’s like China and manufacturing.
 
Just on the issue of production, the Germans actually reached peak production in 1943 and 1944 with 25,000 and 40,000 planes produces respectively. It was only as Germany lost land to Allied forces that they lost their supply chain and then their production facilities and their production collapsed. Therefore the air campaigns were not as successful at knocking out German production as many believe.
The Americans were producing almost 100,000 planes a year by 1944. 30% of Russia's planes were built in the USA.

Nikita Khrushchev once said;
I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany's pressure, and we would have lost the war. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don't think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. He never made a special point of holding a conversation on the subject, but when we were engaged in some kind of relaxed conversation, going over international questions of the past and present, and when we would return to the subject of the path we had traveled during the war, that is what he said. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so.

While Russia was a major recipient of US aid the UK received 3 times more than them.
 
Yes Ive read that quote... many we read the same books

Just on the question of German production would we not expect a bigger increase in output of planes tanks equipment? Id expect the bombing to be having a suppression effect.
 
odyssey06 said:
Yes Ive read that quote... many we read the same books

Just on the question of German production would we not expect a bigger increase in output of planes tanks equipment? Id expect the bombing to be having a suppression effect.
Click to expand...
It was more about running out of materials than running out of factories to build the finished products. The Allied (American) targeting of the rail infrastructure was quite successful but production of the Panzer 3 & 4 all peaked in 1944, as did production of the Panzer 5 (Panther) and the Panzer 6 (Tiger) so they were still doing okay right up to the end but they were never going to match American production form 1943 onwards or indeed Russian production from the same period.
Ford's Willow Run factory was producing a B-24 Liberator every 63 minutes, American shipyards were launching a liberty ship every day (they could build one on less than a week), in 1944 America produced nearly 100,000 planes. In total America accounted for a little over half of all military materials produced during the War.
So, Russian blood and American Steel. I stand by that comment.
 
My point is more what would the peak have been if their industry could work away without air attack and blockade and active denial of resources by the western allies?
They ran out of materials... the Western Allies did not. That was not an accident, it did not come for free of fall into their lap but a reflection of the military collateral the UK and US had in ships, planes, bases, logistics. It had to be defended and then the transport protected.
 
odyssey06 said:
My point is more what would the peak have been if their industry could work away without air attack and blockade and active denial of resources by the western allies?
Click to expand...
Answered above; the Americans were arming themselves, the British (60% of land lease materials went to the UK) and, to a lesser but still significant extent, the Russians. There is no way that Germany, even if unmolested by American and allied Naval and Air resources, could ever have kept up with American production.
Agreed, but the Germans were rubbish at logistics so not having the stuff wasn't as big a problem as not being able to get the stuff to where it was needed. The thing that makes a military effective is it's ability to deploy.
 

The question I have in mind is the balance of German production versus Russian production, where the US (and UK) were not:
  • Actively suppressing German production with air attacks and blockade
    • This also had the effect of redirecting key hardware such as fighters to the West
  • Actively assisting Russia with equipment
 
I think the fist had less of an impact than is commonly thought.
The second was important but the bulk of German forces, Tanks, Aircraft and materials were engaged in the East. Something like 70-80% of it.
The third was critical. The US supplied the equipment for the UK to maintain its war effort. Without it the British would have run out of everything long before the Germans. The first thing the US did was give them 50 war ships. The British just didn't have the Naval capability to get the stuff it needed, even if much of it was available in the Colonies.
 
If the US didn't enter the war, and didn't supply Russia (and the UK) with war material, Germany would have prevailed. If there were any doubt, the Khrushchev quote is ample evidence.
Japan would probably have taken the opportunity to grab a huge chunk of Siberia and its abundant natural resources.
The cold war would have been contested between the US and Nazi Germany. The US would have prevailed for similar reasons as it did against the USSR.
 
But the Americans were arming the British and Russians long before they entered the war.
On the Cold War question, both sides would have had Nukes and there was considerable support for Nazi Germany in the US so there's a reasonable chance that there wouldn't have been much of a Cold War and Nazi thinking would have influences and emboldened the Christian Right and White Supremacists in America.
 
Last edited:
Hmmm, interesting point. I think that the Cold War fault lines would have developed along ideological and economic differences. The US being an ultra free enterprise, individual liberty based society and Nazism being a very state-centric, ultra authoritarian system. (Remember: it was called National Socialism for good reason.)

Hitler certainly believed that the US was an enemy with which he would eventually have to be at war. His biggest strategic error (more than Barbarossa) was declaring war on the US in the days after Pearl Harbor.
 
Probably, but who knows. Remember that the American Nazi Party enjoyed broad support, with rallied in Madison Square Garden and marches through Manhattan.
Baby boomer said:
His biggest strategic error (more than Barbarossa) was declaring war on the US in the days after Pearl Harbor.
Click to expand...
It was a mistake but I wouldn't say it was bigger than Barbarossa.
 
Back on topic; the Americans and Russians are talking about Ukraine and the EU is not in the room.
Anyone who thinks this is a good thing will, I'm sure, also be against an EU more jointed defence infrastructure.
Anyone who thinks this is a bad thing should be supporting a more joined up EU defence policy and an increase in defence spending within the EU. It turns out that there are bad players in the world and we actually do need to defend ourselves. When I say "we" I obviously don't mean us specifically. We'll continue to hide behind our fake neutrality and give Russia and China a veto over whether we deploy our Defence Forces.
 
I thought it was American and NATO talking to Russia?

There's no reason why Germany & France couldn't increase defence spending under their own auspices, or under NATO, or some other joint pact - they are the 4th and 7th largest economies in the world. Their voice within NATO would be correspondingly louder.

The general view in Europe is that defence is not a priority, that won't change whether it's under an EU umbrella?

No Ukraine breakthrough, but NATO and Russia eye more talks

The United States and NATO have rejected key Russian security demands for easing tensions over Ukraine
abcnews.go.com
 
It is beyond time that the EU developed an integrated defence policy. One combined entity is better than 27 with all the duplication and incompatibilities that brings.

The EU is probably the most significant supranational political project ever undertaken and it cannot exist indefinitely in a halfway house towards full political integration. Not least because some of our fellow member states face external threats on their borders, Cyprus and Greece from Turkey, the Baltics and Poland from Russia and its satellites and all member states face threats from cyber-warfare. Nettles need to be grasped.

Or alternatively, we can live in splendid isolation out in the Atlantic without the ability to even detect foreign warplanes in our airspace. Sure the Gulf Stream will protect us from all harm.
 
Taking Ireland out of the picture for the moment... what can we do in the EU that we couldn't have done by joining NATO?

Germany and France took defence more seriously in the 1980s, pre EU.
All the major military powers in Europe are in NATO, as are those most concerned about Russia such as Poland and Baltic States.
Under NATO auspices they have co-ordination to minimise duplication and incompatibilities.

It's not Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Finland and Malta holding European defence back and it should be noted that Sweden as a neutral has a substantial military for its size and is increasing defence spending by 40%.
 
odyssey06 said:
Taking Ireland out of the picture for the moment... what can we do in the EU that we couldn't have done by joining NATO?
Click to expand...
Imagine for a moment that the USA had not one, but fifty separate military forces, cooperating closely perhaps, but each under the political control of one of the fifty States. Fifty different recruitment and training systems. Fifty different procurement programs. Fifty different budgeting systems. Etc, etc.
Does that answer your question?

odyssey06 said:
Germany and France took defence more seriously in the 1980s, pre EU.
All the major military powers in Europe are in NATO, as are those most concerned about Russia such as Poland and Baltic States.
Click to expand...
Sweden and Finland have concerns about Russia!

odyssey06 said:
Under NATO auspices they have co-ordination to minimise duplication and incompatibilities.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but there's practical limits to that. Economies of scale and so on.

odyssey06 said:
It's not Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Finland and Malta holding European defence back and it should be noted that Sweden as a neutral has a substantial military for its size and is increasing defence spending by 40%.
Click to expand...
Proximity to Russia does that!
 
I don't think it does. What matters is how seriously those states treat defence, co-ordination is secondary. Especially as training, procurement are all synchronised under NATO umbrella for all the major EU counties.
Yes, it might be more effectively co-ordinated under a single administration, but that's not the reason for the EU countries lack of military power.
You can only co-ordinate the forces\power that you have, and those EU countries just don't have enough, because they don't commit as much resources to defence as they did in the 1980s.
Sweden have taken independent action to significantly boost their military. Better EU co-ordination isn't going to beat a 40% increase in defence spending. Because of their proximity to Russia and the concerns that come with that.
Concerns which Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and others don't have to anywhere the same extent. So Irish people don't strongly identify with the concerns of Latvians over Russia, anymore than Latvians (to take a random example) identified with Irish people over Northern Ireland.
It's not "the EU" holding things back, it's that the people of Europe don't identify with each other the way Irish people do, or Americans so, or Italians do, when push comes to shove. If they did, so would EU institutions reflect shared concerns.

And Irish people and Latvians have less in common in terms of ancestry, language, shared experiences than New Englanders had with Virginians pre the American Civil War.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register