In the New York Times, Chris Miller says there's a reason that Vladimir Putin keeps winning wars:
For the past decade, Americans have come to believe that Russia’s strength lies in hybrid tactics — cyberwarfare, misinformation campaigns, covert operations — and its ability to meddle in other countries’ domestic politics. Yet as we have searched for Russian phantoms behind every misinformed Facebook post, Russia has replaced the poorly equipped army it inherited from the Soviet Union with a modern fighting force, featuring everything from new missiles to advanced electronic warfare systems. Today the threat to Europe’s security is not hybrid warfare but hard power, visible in the cruise missiles that have struck across Ukraine.
In other words, Russia has a kick-ass military. That's why they keep winning.
IANARE, but doesn't this miss a tiny little something? Namely that until now Putin has fought only tiny little wars. Of course he's won in South Ossetia and Crimea and—if you stretch the definition of "win" considerably—Syria. This is like congratulating the United States for winning in Grenada and Kosovo. Big deal.
Having extremely limited and specific objectives is an excellent military strategy, and that's why Putin has won so many wars. But it says nothing about how good Russia's military is when it decides to fight a big war with unclear objectives. They are now trying to do approximately what we tried to do in Iraq, and only time will tell if they succeed.
But they might. It's likely that the Russian war in Ukraine will eventually turn into a counterinsurgency, and my read of history suggests that the only way for a counterinsurgency to succeed is to embrace ruthless brutality. It's to America's credit that we were never willing to go completely down that path in Iraq, but it's quite possible that Putin is. If he does, he will be more of a pariah than ever but he might just win. Ask the Chechnyans.
OTOH ask the Afghanis. And I have no doubt that the US and the rest of NATO would be MORE than happy to provide them everything we/they gave the Afghanis fighting the SU (before we had the incomparably bright idea to invade).
But on the third hand, even a stalemate at this point would count as a major embarrassment for Putin, and I fear he would destroy major parts of Ukraine to avoid it. I do not see this ending well ...
unless the military turns against Putin.
From your mouth to God's ear!
It’s gonna be the mothers of the soldiers who will be the most prominent. Their military has spent a ton of $ on arms, but they are dreadful at logistics and supply lines. Putin thought he could wrap it up in days, but now he has troops all over Ukraine that will fast be out of critical supplies. They move most of their materials via train and if he ever wanted to go into a NATO country, his supply lines would atop at the border because they have different size rail splits than the West, so they have to unload and put on trucks, which they are in short supply. NATO estimates Russian would only be able to supply troops 90 miles inside of the EU. Ukraine has same rail splits as Russia, but they will start bombing the tracks
Well, they spent a ton of money on arms. The old Soviet Union had a long and hilarious (if watching from the outside) history of imaginative sabotaging of 5 year plans where the production managers would carefully meet the letter of the plan goals, so they got their bonus, while producing as little useful product as possible.
Now, replace commissars with oligarchs - I don't think the game playing actually stopped. I've seen articles about the Russians running out of fuel, food, and even having to ration heavy munitions. They went in with only the fuel, food, and munitions they could carry on their vehicles, and insufficient transport for resupply. (Particularly after heavy tracked vehicles churn up the roads and the Ukrainians blow bridges.) The Russians broke up into at least 20 battalion or smaller size units that don't seem to be well trained or properly equipped for independent operation.
They can inflict a lot of damage and casualties, but Putin was expecting it to be a done deal by Wednesday. Not nearly.
A bit over 70% of Ukrainians speak Russian, and seem to have no problem talking dirty to the invaders and messing with street signs. Over at Kos I followed an embedded twitter thread. The road sign department has been altering signs so that they all read "Some bogus destination" followed by "Go Fuck Yourselves" in Cyrillic.
Half the Russian army, at least, will be radioactive after how the invading force disregarded protocol in the Cherbobyl Containment Area.
I think it will be more than embarrassment.
So far the colony of radioactive zombies had remained tranquille. The Russians should not push their luck.
...even a stalemate at this point would count as a major embarrassment for Putin, and I fear he would destroy major parts of Ukraine to avoid it.
After just a few days, it's hard to see how Putin achieves any kind of victory in Ukraine.
Which means he will (literally) be fighting for his life at home. It's a question of when that happens, and how much damage he inflicts in the meantime. Maybe that's months out, but maybe it's much sooner.
I think shorter because this seems wrong:
KD: "In other words, Russia has a kick-ass military. That's why they keep winning."
There's not a single expert* I've seen or read that is impressed with Russia's military after the first few days. Almost everyone is surprised by the ineptitude and mismanagement of Russian operations. If the goal was to strike quickly and build on early success, they have already failed. Even the Putinist wing of the GOP has already done an about-face and sees Putin as the eventual loser.
Russia is much bigger than Ukraine economically (9x GDP). They have a big advantage in materiel, but NATO countries will be supplying arms for Ukraine to keep the fight going for however long is needed. In manpower, Ukraine has the advantage, with more than 1 million troops (active plus reserves, not inc. new conscripts -- not to mention, every able-bodied man, woman, and child on the street) vs. Russia's 150k to 200k troops dedicated to the invasion so far.
Russia is already totally isolated. OK, they have Belarus but even Borat's home is on the other side and China will probably not throw a life jacket to its drowning neighbor. The US (14x Russia's GDP) and the EU (10x) are cutting off Russia's funding. Russia's going to run out of money probably in a matter of months.
Putin has put himself in a terrible, terrible position. His invasion is likely to go down as one of the epic blunders in modern history.
* Chris Miller is a historian, not a military expert. He probably should stay in his lane.
Putin has never seen Ukraine right. It also is the beginning of the end of the current Republican party as Oligarchs who finance their operations are being forced to withdrawal funding. I can see states evidence being turned and organizations collapsing by years end. Things are going to get rough with Alex Jones financier VTB Bank. All that rural property in the US they bought will be liquidated. Putin doesn't care anymore. He thinks he has Chinese support. The psyops is old news.
I'm still trying to figure out how insane you are since you're clearly both (1) a right-wing troll and (2) apparently believe that the only reason Republicans win any elections is funding from Russian oligarchs? It makes no sense.
It's the Rosicrucians behind it all.
IOW, your saying it's The Brotherhood of the Rose meets Foucalt's Pendulum.
omg, it's true!
I think it depends on which meds SoG forgot to take on a given day …
Don’t feed the troll. Just tell him to fuck off if you need to say anything to it.
Amen to that.
It might not be the case but it sure looks like the Ukrainians are putting up a good fight. I’d like to think that NATO had a plan intervene in case the Ukrainians proved up to the task (unlike the pathetic and useless Afghans and Iraqis) so to embarrass and humiliate the Russian military.
I know… can you even imagine! 😂. The US military is as useless and pathetic as the Afghans! 😂
Sorry… This is the moment when a bold leader of the free world would seize the moment. Will they? Are there little green American men ready to defend Kviv?
Or are they too busy chasing Islamic radicals in Somalia?
Damn if this isn’t turning into our generation’s Spanish Civil War.
You mean Winston Churchill wants to impose an arms embargo on the Ukrainians?
Honest to god, I've never understood why the anti-appeasement crowd has such a love for Churchill. For most of the 1930s, he was actively opposed to action that would have impeded Nazi encroachment.
Sometimes being a smart-ass just leads to incoherence. Alas, here we have a prime example.
What don’t you understand? Let’s start with theUS military is incompetent and useless. What else?
Rather sweeping statement which does not convince. But you are known for that, aren't you? Rather than incompetence, the problem is that the US military is frequently given unwise and often impossible missions by the political leadership.
Oh please. This is a fine go to excuse for failure. 😂
I wish my boss would think that way.
Man, you’re lucky if you never had a boss that gave out impossible and unwise assignments! I’d like to be in your instance of the multiverse.
It’s not about me… it’s the pathetic excuses for military incompetence. If you can’t do the job, quit.
you would use a hammer when a screwdriver is the tool in need. when the hammer inevitably fails, you would blame the hammer for not being a screwdriver. the u.s. military is built to win battles, not build nations. it pretty much accomplished its original mission in the early days of the afghan war. they should have been pulled out at that time. that they were not falls on the shoulders of george w. bush and the CIVILIAN leaders of our country, not the military. the fact that they were in iraq at all also falls squarely on the shoulders of george w. bush and the CIVILIAN leaders of our country, not the military. learning from history requires actually knowing it, not bending a perceived set of facts to suit your personal bias.
Let me catch you up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/us/politics/somalia-shabab-us-airstrike.html
The US military is ready to defend Somali “allies” but not Ukraine. Ok… I sort of get it. But golly it sure looks bad. Of all times to start bombing some place anew…
Dude. Where is the war???
Oh, that isn't a war. Idiot
Sorry… This is the moment when a bold leader of the free world would seize the moment. Will they? Are there little green American men ready to defend Kviv?
The principle reason our species has managed to survive the last eight decades is the reluctance of nuclear powers to engage in direct conflict (usually they prefer proxies).
So, the answer is "no."
I hear the Ukrainians are looking for foreign volunteers. Sign your lazy a$$ up.
Once again has democracy been wide-eyed , been naive , been deceived . Once again has democracy believed an unscrupulous dictator in the end would act according to what we believe is logic and predictability
Vladimir Putin is beyond everything that has to do with what is considered to be moral or ethical. A sane person cannot understand how the mind of a monster like Vladimir Putin works .
Putin has been trained into being a torturer back in the bad old days by KGB . He has been involved with organized crime for decades, stealing and murdering. His political legacy is deceiving and oppression and that’s what he expects from everyone else.
Putin is a man who is terrified because he knows dictators never retires.
Dictators have to stay on top or else will they lose everything… most likely also their life
Vladimir Putin has created an alternative reality and he needs to convince the majority of the Russians to accept it … and he is probably even accepting his own lies as truths by know.
A comment by a Swede who isn’t comfortable with having Russia as a neighbor
Plus all of which, now his doctors have put him on steroids -- the go-to move for dying dictators. They kept Brezhnev sorta-kinda breathing for ~8 years, but back then there was collective leadership, and the rest of the Politburo changed his passwords, so to speak, and probably ordered the steroids to be supplemented with tranquilizers. There is no one to change Putin's passwords, so the paranoia and the acting-out will continue and escalate until the machine fails.
I do believe he is on steroids. If you look at recent pictures of him, he has a more swollen face than just a few years ago. Steroids are well known to produce this moon-faced or cushoid appearance.
Why he taking steroids I don't know. But it does suggest poor health of some sort.
This whole thing is a massive roid rage because he doesn't like boner pills?
So does aging, dude, especially among a subset of men.
So far, Putin’s vision of reclaiming the Soviet empire seems to be working out just fine. The only risk was sanctions and the west has decided not to impose real ones on the oligarchs such as would imperil fortune or family. He doesn’t seem particularly crazy—ruthless and evil, yes. Crazy, no.
So far, Putin’s vision of setting Russia back a few centuries seems to be working out just fine. If he doesn't seem particularly crazy to you, then maybe insane is the right word. Insane people generally do not succeed in their aims.
When do we start executing Russians in the West? I’m game for that.
That would be forbidden under international law. And it would be morally wrong. It would be permissible to intern Russian nationals and seize property pursuant to appropriate domestic legislation and that’s something we need to consider.
They are enemy combatants.
Unless a state would pass legislation formally recognizing that a state of hostilities exists with Russia, even Russian military cannot be “enemy combatants” and most particularly civilians who just happen to be in the country cannot be treated as citizens of a belligerent and interned.
There is no state of hostilities between, for example, the US and Russia. Even interning Russian nationals or seizing their property would require domestic legislation.
You want to work within the law and I get that. But people are dying and shit is being blown up.
I’m not really concerned with the intricacies… but then let’s pass a law saying all Russians are enemy combatants and then do the deed. Whack the fuckers. Yes… I’m just angry and impulsive right now. Sad too. I’m not the President so I can wail and gnash. If I knew a Russian I would punch them in the nose. 🤥
The issue is the will to stand up to Russia. If you can’t pass sanctions of the type I’m describing then it’s vanishingly improbable that anything like what you’re describing could be done, legalities aside. Powerful sanctions against the oligarchs seizing their property and forcing the permanent return of their families to Russia is the kind of existential threat that would motivate the oligarchs to act against Putin. Anything else is just for show.
I’m not a congress person so I can’t pass anything. But I would like to support those who advocate for them. And I’m mad too. So yeah… hating on Russians is part of the deal.
I think a campaign to force divestment from Russian businesses and to forbid Russian nationals from entering western countries or having beneficial ownership of assets in the west would be important.
In the meantime, moveon.org has a petition and is raising money to support the Ukrainians.
https://front.moveon.org
Sheesh, I mean FDR only interned the Japanese and you are ready to execute? Seems a bit strong
I suggest you read Justin for the comedic value of his unhinged statements.
Justin is a nihilistic immoral monster. All his comments are basically “fuck everything, tear it all down, kill everyone and let God sort it out.” If only he could be physically locked away with the other trolls in an internet-less room…
Only here. Otherwise I’m a perfectly nice guy with friends and family.
But I think you misinterpret my cynicism. The fact is that the political class and the media are not making anything better. My comments point that out. The proper response is to change course, but too many of you are in denial about it.
The future is looking grim. And nothing that democrats in congress or the media propose is going to change that.
Good luck.
Just asking for a friend.
Is the International Space Station considered part of the West?
Europe is kicking Russian banks out of SWIFT and European Soccer teams are refusing to play team Russia, also agreements to ban "golden passports" ie purchase of another country's citizenship and even the German Chancellor going hawkish on sanctions and allowing Germany to supply weapons to Ukraine. So I think your hot take which was good a day ago or so is now outmoded.
Not really. A few people who are not oligarchs or their families Will be somewhat inconvenienced during the war itself but remember the oligarchs are being permitted to keep their families safe in the west and to keep their wealth safe in the west so they really are not particularly imperiled by any of these sanctions. The only sanctions that would affect the oligarchs are the seizure of their assets or even the forest repatriation of those assets and the interning or forced repatriation of their family members. That’s the oligarchs skin in the game everything else is just window dressing.
The removal of Russian banks from SWIFT would have been a powerful bit of muscle flexing by the west prior to the invasion. But what it means now is simply that oligarchs will need to use intermediary banks which are connected to SWIFT until after a new puppet regime is installed in Ukraine and the Russian banks are permitted to rejoin SWIFT.
I agree. Confiscate all "their" property in the West. Start with Florida. Put those who can "claim" Russian citizenship into camps, like we did to the Japanese in WWII.
The bulk of the Russian oligarchs property in the west is in London, the South of France, Paris, and Manhattan (probably in the order). They have some property holdings in Florida but probably not much.
With the enactment of proper domestic legislation it would be possible to intern Russian nationals but (under international law) only for the duration of hostilities in Ukraine in which the US is somehow involved.
What would be much simpler and far more effective would be the forced repatriation of Russian nationals combined with a permanent ban on their entry to western countries. This would force the oligarchs to choose between having their families endangered by virtue of being forced to live in a mafia state or risk moving against Putin. I believe that’s the Ukrainians best shot and ours. It’s what we should do now.
Mitch SWIFT isn't only about oligarchs moving around their ill gotten gains, it's also about commerce and trade in Russia - this makes it all a huge PITA, they now have to fax data and other old school methods to move funds to pay for imported goods.
Yes, it’s kind of a hassle but it doesn’t really hurt the oligarchs and they are the only ones who might conceivably depose/kill Putin in time to prevent the conquest of Ukraine.
As I’ve said previously, cutting Russia off from SWIFT would have sent a powerful message to Russians and might made them think twice. But now, the die is cast. In the absence of an existential threat to the oligarchs they’ve no reason to challenge Putin. That’s why I think the current sanctions regime is to far behind the curve to make any difference at this point.
Europe is kicking Russian banks out of SWIFT
Some banks. Apparently not all.
I'm cautiously hopeful this sanction will prove meaningful. But I'll await the details.
Maybe not crazy, but bringing up nuclear weapons (several times) doesn’t exactly demonstrate sound judgment.
Why? Putin’s absolutely certain that the US isn’t going to start a nuclear war with Russia under any circumstances. I don’t think he sees a downside to a little nuclear saber rattling.
Of course, the US is not going to go nuclear. But we and our NATO allies are sending arms to Ukraine, which has several great advantages over Putin's troops: (1) more troops, (2) a great leader, and (3) the home field.
I think the Russian military is substantially larger than Ukraine’s and eventually it will almost certainly prevail unless the west ruthlessly imposed (or plausibility threatened to impose) the kind of devastating sanctions on the oligarchs that might motivate them to depose and kill Putin. I’m the absence of such western aid or unpredictable political developments in Russia if the campaign stalls and casualties mount over a period of months, it’s only a matter of time.
logistics wins wars, and russia's logistics aren't very good. all that military might is great, but it has to be moved and supplied over great distances. meanwhile, ukraine's overall strength is certainly smaller than russia's but the distances it needs to move troops and supples is nothing compared with what russia faces. it can bring forces to bear much more quickly than the russians can, which can make up for its lack of numbers.
don't forget that russia still needs to maintain troops along its border with poland and the baltic states especially in light of recent actions by nato.
That’s all true. There’s reports in the Globe and Mail of Russian main battle tanks having been abandoned because they’d run out of fuel and there was no fuel available. Ukraine has plenty of fuel because they’re being continuously resupplied by the EU and NATO.
Similarly, more nations are allowing their nationals to join Ukraine’s nascent foreign legion. If there’s enough time, this will hopefully replace previously irreplaceable soldiers which is a major weakness for Ukraine.
To a large extent, these developments validate Kevin’s point about the new Russian military having never been tested. And they offer an opportunity to increase the pressure on Russia with even more powerful sanctions. But eventually the Russians will shift to placing Ukrainian cities under siege which will allow their supplies to catch up with them. At that point, the best shot at a Winter War victory for Ukraine will rest with the domestic mayhem being caused inside Russia by ever increasing sanctions and isolation from the West (businesses pressured to abandon Russia or stop doing business with Russian firms, more countries closing their airspace, more countries refusing to shift goods to Russia or sell goods inside Russia, threats to repatriate Russian oligarchs and seize their assets, etc).
I dunno -- he's unified NATO and got the Germans to OK the use of German weapons against Russians, which is a big step for them. There are more NATO troops in the Baltics than before, and a statement by the US President that "not one inch" of NATO territory is up for grabs.
And so far, it seems that the Russian military isn't fully committed -- they don't even have control of Ukrainian air space yet, which I thought was step 0 in fighting a war since 1940.
It’s certainly possible that it’s going to be another Winter War. I certainly hope so and, from what I’ve read some in the Russian general staff thought it was possible even as they were planning the invasion. World opinion does seem to be hardening against Russia and the West’s openly resupplying the Ukrainians is a big deal.
I continue to believe that the Ukrainians won’t be able to hold out forever in the absence of meaningful support in the form of economic sanctions targeting the Russian economy generally and the oligarchs specifically. We must seek to change conditions within Russia and I believe the best hope for this is to threaten the oligarchs with the loss of their fortunes and the deaths of their families if they can no longer be kept safely in the west.
Russia has been practicing destroying undersea cables recently,
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43828/undersea-cable-connecting-norway-with-arctic-satellite-station-has-been-mysteriously-severed
I think he seriously wants to recreate the only world he understands, the Cold War period of his earliest formative impressions, the only impressions that mean anything to him or motivate him in any way, as with all social conservatives, except he will want to take it further, he will want to win the Cold War.
DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK. There is something bad about the website it takes you. It immediately pegs Task Manager. I had to kill the tab to get away from it.
Doesn't do anything to me, I look at that site all the time.
What browser are you using?
Are they sure it wasn’t just another Russian submarine sinking?
There were also some stories last year about Russian submarines lurking about trans-Atlantic cables.
One of the great intel nabs was tapping Russian cables underwater near Vladivostok. There was a sign on the beach warning about underwater cables. US couldn’t believe how stupid Russians were
Note the false comparison in the last paragraph: America to Putin. The correct comparison is American forces behind American leadership to Russian forces behind Putin's leadership. Putin is absolutely willing to go full genocide here; I am betting that most of his hand-selected leadership is as well. The question becomes whether he has enough Russian forces willing to commit genocide to do so.
American military forces has/had enough sociopaths and psychopaths willing to "win" in Iraq by killing everything that moved but they were kept in check by leadership. With Trump, he wasn't quite willing to condone such behavior, just pardon it after the fact, and he stood alone among the rest of the DoD leadership there.
However there have been some indications that he's losing support of the people and whispers that some of the oligarchs are upset over the war. Putin is going into cornered rat mode. Heck even Hockey star Ovechkin made a right down the middle PR shaped statement about thing, He said Putin was his president, that he wanted the war to end, did not say I support my president or anything.
Would that be Alex ‘Chickenshit’ Ovechkin? The guy who made the totally gutless statement that he just wished it would ‘end soon’?
Chickenshit is married into the Oligarchy so a statement that isn't fawning towards Putin is astonishing. Very Strange his wife went back to Russia in January, came back to accompany Ovie to the all star game but when Ovie couldn't go she hopped on the very next flight out of Dulles back to Moscow. Their two children are also in Moscow.
Evigeny Malkin of the Penguins was also involved in Putin fawning back when Putin was running for reelection in 2018 "Putin Team" I think it was.
It's like being in the Syndicate or the Sopranos I suspect, you can't exit easily without risk of defenestration or glowing tea.
There were a number of commanders in the old Soviet armed forces who took steps to avoid nuclear war on their own--and suffered because of that.
The thing that people need to remember is that Russia invading the Ukraine is not like other invasions: Ukrainians are not some scary other, as lots of Ukrainians live in Russia, lots of Russians live and work in Ukraine, and family ties are common. President Volodymyr Zelensky is ethnically Russian, for example. Unlike the other wars, this is a borderline civil war, and Russians are hesitating this time.
The propaganda war is also faltering this time around. It's not barbarian Chechens, or Syrians, but the more cultivated Ukraine. And it seems to be severely ill-planned, lacking logistics and underestimating the resolve of the people living there.
I think this is true and probably was why the Ukrainian leaders are trying to communicate directly to the Russian people with speeches and a website for the mothers of killed or captured Russian soldiers. It’s a good strategy but only if implemented with a combination of military aid (which has been forthcoming) and a powerful sanctions regime (which has not). So there’s basically no time pressure on Russia that sanctions would’ve created.
So my guess is that Ukraine won’t be able to hold out forever which means that Russia will eventually win. And then my guess is the weakest of the former satellites will be next. Probably taking all of the constituent parts of former Czechoslovakia because of their value to the former Soviet empire as an industrial base which is some thing that Russia lacks at the moment. So I can definitely see where former Czechoslovakia might be Russia’s next conquest.
Mitch know that there are a ton of families that some folks in Ukraine and some in Russia, so lots of individual cross border communications via text messages and secure apps. Odds are Russians are getting informed about what's going on outside of Putin's crazy propaganda machine inside Russia, this is why folks are emboldened to gather in the streets to protest in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
We might be at a tipping point if Europe and US handle things right.
If there had been powerful sanctions implemented immediately as Russia attacked then it would have been a question of whether the Ukrainians could hold out until the sanctions forced the oligarchs to act. But now the Ukrainians will need to outright militarily defeat the Russians because there’s no sanctions that are scaring the oligarchs.
I wonder if the oligarchs are pressuring Putin to do this.
It seems unlikely in the extreme. Unless there was some back channel discussion of which we’re unaware, up until the moment that Boris opened his mouth I think there was an expectation that the sanctions be very harsh and might involve expelling oligarchs families and either seizing or forcing the repatriation of assets which would basically start a feeding frenzy in Russia.
I don't see the former Czechoslovakia thing at all. Look at a map. Which of the neighboring countries would be indifferent? I don't see Poland or Hungary sitting still for that. And Russia would undertake that while fighting insurgencies across Ukraine? And how will those supply lines work? Invasion isn't even feasible, let alone conquest.
Good points. Czechoslovakia might need to wait depending on the outcome of the Ukrainian conquest. But, ultimately, there’s not much that Poland or Hungary can do without western sanctions to stop Putin and it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s not much that Putin could do that would trigger anything more than the pathetically weak, performative sanctions that were the response to the invasion of Ukraine.
But, ultimately, I think Russia needs former Czechoslovakia and if you can figure out a way to do it probably east Germany former east Germany as well because those were the industrial sectors of the Soviet empire which had very limited industrial capacity of its own. So my guess is those are the long-term goals of Russia. The intermediate steps are hard to predict partly because Putin is hard to predict. But I don’t see him stopping with Ukraine once it’s been properly digested.
Oh, stop it! You sound like the general staff planning the Gallipoli campaign. Yes, the Triple Entente "needed" the Gallipoli peninsula and Constantinople, but *need* isn't enough.
"But I don’t see him stopping with Ukraine once it’s been properly digested."
And I don't see Ukraine being "properly digested" for at least a decade, if ever. The USSR never "properly digested" Afghanistan, and it was much poorer and more remote than Ukraine.
You're describing a fantasy.
Mitch is our resident worst-case-scenario commenter. Sometimes he makes good sense, but it's a bummer to immerse yourself in his unrelenting gloom and doom.
I don’t understand the analogy to Gallipoli.
On the current context, the better analogy for Russia’s ability to digest Ukraine would (as Kevin suggested) be Chechnya which was digested quickly, effectively, and ruthlessly.
The analogy to Gallipoli is that Putin mounting and invasion and conquest of Czechoslovakia is only realistic if you do your military planning with maps and without regard to the realities on the ground. That's what happened in Gallipoli and that's why it failed.
Yogi Berra's 'It ain't over 'til it's over' is as true in war as in baseball. But, the French proverb, often attributed to the Count Bussy-Rabutin “providence is always on the side of the big battalions” is also worth thinking about.
The Ukrainians have certainly been putting up a very good fight—vastly better than anyone expected. So, it’s conceivable that another Winter War is unfolding. But the force that Russia can throw against Ukrainian cities is far greater in numbers and firepower than anything the Ukrainians can withstand for long. Ukraine’s future as anything but a Russian puppet is still unlikely unless the West puts genuine pressure on the Russian oligarchs sufficient to make them feel the need to stick their necks out to depose and execute Putin.
The analogy to the Gallipoli campaign still seems inapt. The entire campaign was flawed because it rested on a series of flawed assumption (e.g, inferiority of Turkish soldiers, Turks would surrender, seemingly impregnable defensive positions could be easily overcome,etc) that each had to be correct for the operation to be successful. That’s not the case here (or, at least, not entirely). The invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, is a pretty straightforward application of overwhelming force, ruthlessly applied to a much smaller opponent.
It might cost the Russians significantly more to take a well prepared, continuously resupplied Ukrainian defense but ultimately it’s a very straightforward proposition rather more like the siege of a medieval or ancient city—in the absence of relief, the outcome is inevitable. A powerful sanctions regime might have created disruptions inside Russia which might have have allowed the Ukrainians to survive longer than Putin but, in their absence, I think the Ukrainians are almost certainly doomed.
Here’s an interesting article on the Gallipoli Campaign which makes some of your points but which I think ultimately supports my thinking:
https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/jfq/jfq-79/jfq-79_96-101_Adams.pdf
great. how are the russians going to move them? how are they going to supply them? and what are they going to do with their borders with their nato and no-nato neighbors? abandon them? meanwhile ukraine is mobilizing millions of its citizens. oddly enough, they're not rolling over.
Let's see, Chechnya tried to declare independence in 1991, basically found Russia to a standstill in the 1994-6 war, lost the 1999-2000 war that brought back Russian control, and was still fighting an insurgency until at least 2004.
Oh, Chechnya has a population of about 1.3 million.
I believe Kevin’s point and mine about the nature of counterinsurgency warfare is that Russian brutality in Chechnya was effective in suppressing the rebellion through sheer inhumane, primitive brutality. The occasional terroristic attack inside Russia is not going to change the reality that the Russian way of warfare was to turn Chechnya into hell on earth. Counterinsurgency theorists have an expression to describe things kind of scorched earth campaign—they call it the Full Putin.
No, your comment said it happened quickly which it did not.
If they are to prevail in the invasion and install a puppet regime, he will be so bogged down with an insurgency that going anywhere else will be out of the question. I don’t even think his inner circle will want to go any further based on how well this is working put
You could be right but if the example of Chechnya means anything I think any insurgency would be very short lived. At a minimum, I think Russia will be ready to take the rest of Georgia and start nibbling away at, maybe, Poland.
Uh, no. Comparisons between Chechnya and Ukraine are specious on several levels (history, geography, economics, militarily).
You do know that Poland is in NATO, don't you?
I don’t see why comparisons between Chechnya and Ukraine are specious. None of the factors you speak of would prevent Russia from crushing any resistance or insurgency using the same ruthlessness and barbarity as Putin used in Chechnya. Indeed, the fact that Ukrainian resistance fighters would have access to sanctuary in neighboring countries and significant resupply opportunities would make those methods (including the leveling of cities and indiscriminate killings) that worked in Chechnya imperative to use in Ukraine.
I’m well aware of Poland’s status. I just don’t think there will be much, if any, pushback from the other NATO members even if Art 5 is invoked. The same dependence on Russian natural gas will constrain Germany and Italy. And the same addiction to Russian oligarchs money will continue to constrain the US, France, and the UK. Poland (or whichever country Russia takes a bite of) will be on its own.
I see you entirely missed my point. The analogy to Gallipoli was directed specifically at your hypothesis that Putin won't stop at Ukraine. Only someone indifferent to reality would expect Putin to invade the former Czechoslovakia, as you suggested.
I'm quite well acquainted with the military history of the Gallipoli campaign, which is why I brought it up. The general staff pursued folly, indifferent to the facts on the ground. A Russian military invasion of Czechoslovakia would be folly, and would reflect indifference to the facts on the ground.
Hope that helps.
A Russian invasion of Ukraine is folly. That's why I and apparently many others never believed Putin would do so. Well, now he has committed that folly (as U.S. did in Iraq) and he suffer the consequences accordingly.
As Yogi Berra said. “It’s Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future”. One could have said the same about the Norman conquest of England.
Thank you for the clarification. I still think you’re using a very flawed analogy. It’s certainly true that such a campaign by Russia (like all military campaigns) would be built on assumptions about how the enemy would react and how well each side would fight but the difference between the situation which I’m describing and the Battle of Gallipoli is that the assumption underlying Putin’s hypothetical campaign to reconstruct the Soviet empire, his assumptions have been tested and validated by real world experience.
Obviously, the west is capable of responding to Russia’s aggression by changing its basic approach to sanctions and to curbing the appetite of the financial and property sectors for Russian oligarch capital. Indeed we’ve seen a stiffening of Western attitudes over the past days since the invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, if past is prelude, the obstacles to Putin’s efforts at conquest will be too little and too late.
For example, the West and NATO did not respond to Russia’s taking big bites out of Georgia and Ukraine with meaningful sanctions which might have impaired Putin’s hold over the Russian state. He’s nibbled a bit at other countries, too. And the responses have consistently been tepid and timid. This is the first outright invasion and conquest of a sovereign state in Europe since the end of the Second World War and it’s also the largest war in Europe since then. But, again, the response to date has been stronger but still timid and without doing anything that would imperil Putin himself.
So it would seem to me that Putin would be reasonable to assume that once the anger over his conquest of Ukraine (which I think is inevitable in the absence of truly severe sanctions over the entire Russian economy and which threaten the wealth and safe of the oligarchs) there would be no harm in dipping a toe in the waters by taking the rest of Georgia and nibbling away at a NATO country to see how the West responds.
So I can definitely see where former Czechoslovakia might be Russia’s next conquest.
I think Baltics are more likely. But in any event both the Baltics and the former Czechoslovakia are NATO members. An attack on Estonia or Slovakia is an attack on Britain, France and America (nuclear powers).
I sincerely hope you're wrong as in best case scenario, it means the end of that alliance, and in worst case scenario, it means the end of all of us.
I don’t think anyone really knows what Putin is planning and that certainly includes me. I think there’s a general sense that he’s reassembling the Soviet empire including it’s satellites but where he goes next is anybody’s guess. I think he’ll invade Georgia and then start nibbling away at a NATO country. Not so much as a prelude to invasion but more to establish that NATO is helpless before him.
Politically, Putin is very close to achieving the destruction of NATO as a meaning defensive alliance against Russia. He has a powerful ally in Boris. Biden and Macron are effectively immobilized by the powerful financial and property sectors, aided by the extreme right’s threats of further terror campaigns such as we’ve seen in Canada . I think this is the most dangerous moment the west has faced since the Second World War.
There’s near zero chance a NATO ally will be invaded anytime soon. No NATO member with a large army would stand for that. (Perhaps if Biden loses to a Trumper, that’ll change. But none of the European NATO members want NATO to fall apart, and neither does Biden.)
It’s not a question of what anyone wants or of what’s unthinkable. NATO tolerated Russia’s biting off chunks of Georgia and Ukraine. But didn’t really believe that Russia would simply invade and conquer Ukraine.
My point (and I suspect it’s Putin’s as well) is that NATO timid acquiesce to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a good indication of how it will respond to nibbling and then invading a former part of the Soviet empire that’s on NATO’s periphery. My guess (and, again, probably Putin’s, too) is that the current response represents the limits of how far the major powers of NATO will go in light of the powerful forces in Britain, France, and the United States who strongly want business as usual with Russia no matter what.
Leaving aside a Trump restoration for the moment, how would the constraints which I’ve previously described be any less constraining if Putin starts nibbling away at a NATO country? Will Wall Street or the City of London suddenly decide to put principles over profits? Will the property and financial sectors which have gorged on Russian oligarchs wealth suddenly become internationalists with a conscience?
So they question I would put to you is this: why would anyone assume that the leading countries would fight their most powerful domestic interests just to punish Russia for taking a country that’s on Europe and NATO’s periphery?
Because they would regard a military invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by a hostile thermonuclear power as an existential threat.
Portugal is on Europe and NATO's periphery. So is Great Britain.
I have very little doubt that most serious people would indeed regard Russia retaking former Czechoslovakia as an extremely serious threat. But they’re counterbalanced by Putin’s Fifth Columns in the west. What would the bankers and property developers and universities and all the others whose economic well-being favors their taking Russia’s side? And domestically every NATO state has a powerful far right white nationalist movement which supports Putin?
My point (and I suspect it’s Putin’s as well) is that NATO timid acquiesce to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
This is what happens when you comment too quickly.
I analyze the situation as it is because I lack the power to know the future. Happily, fast moving events significantly changed the situation which, for the moment, is running in the west’s favor.
But, as they say, the fighting is by rounds. So we’ll see if all this newfound backbone and desire to do what is right outlasts Putin’s retaliation against the. West using cyberattacks and deployment of his Fifth Columns. On verra !
Russia deploys thermobaric bomb launcher,
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-deploys-feared-tos-1-heavy-flamethrower-near-ukraine-cnn-2022-2?r=US&IR=T
Citizens of Russia, please take note. Your President considers Russians and Ukrainians to be one people, so, if he’s willing to use this terror weapon to slaughter Ukrainians, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it against you!
Russia has only committed about half its invasion force last I heard (up from 1/3). I'd guess you'd send in your best forces first to quickly seize power, then bring in the rest to occupy the country. Russia now has to use their occupying forces to fight the initial battle--so it's not going all that well for them. The Ukrainians held off the Russian troops--so Putin says he halted the advance so their could be peace talks.
As others have said here--this can not end well. Maybe the Belarusians overturn their gov't, asks the Russians to leave, and the Russian military stops supporting Putin and goes home.
He halted because of supply lines. It was assumed they would have control in a couple of days, but now he has troops scattered all over Ukraine in actual combat that need to be supplied. Logistics and supply lines are what wins wars and Russians are notoriously bad on that count
Also, too (actually better): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/26/timidity-greed-and-sloth-why-the-west-always-loses-to-putin
If I were a Ukrainian soldier, I would “accidentally” blow up the gas pipelines between Russia and Europe. That would force a reckoning in Germany etc.
Does anyone have the email address for the Ukraine defense ministry?
Sanctions are just so low-profile. I think a next step ought to be blowing up the Nord Stream 2 line, carried live on video. Send a few pieces to the Kremlin. Just so they know it’s never coming back.
https://youtu.be/aNXmopKkVK4
There are better versions, of course, but…
The Great Gate of Kiev.
For what it’s worth.
Maybe this is more appropriate.
https://youtu.be/DrXISoPuCGg
Better version.
https://youtu.be/FncXqa14ANE
Thank you for the sites.
It's all rather sad that while Vlad was winning these small wars, we didn't put blocks in his way, like SWIFT, NATO for the Ukraine, Finland, etc. There are so many things that "could" have been done but weren't. Then, tfg was "in charge". He paved the way for potti. Damn, damn.
I feel for these poor Ukrainians. My heart bleeds for them. We are such poor neighbours. I know, I know, the "bomb" but we might have been there earlier....
You would imagine that a state that is big on cyberwarfare and misinformation campaigns would be somewhat attuned to the downside of going medieval on Ukraine (ie the Chechnya strategy).
Which gets to the REAL issue here: what's the POINT of this exercise? Until we know why this is being done, we can't know what counts as "victory", and thus how much Russia is willing to sacrifice.
It's clearly impossible to get any sort of unbiased answer to the question right now, but let's ask two less problematic questions:
- What's been the payoff to Russia for Chechnya and Crimea? Crimea I think is justified in terms of Black Sea access? And maybe was not very costly (I guess the equivalent of Anschluss). Chechnya has some oil -- enough to be worth the hassle?
- What's been the INTERNAL Russian attitude to both of the above? Not the idiotic "I'm a western journalist who doesn't speak Russian and only talks to American educated upper class Russians" attitude, but the real cross-societal attitude, from military to politicians to man-in-the-street? Is it "Oh god, what a waste of money" or is it "Preserve the Union!"
How much of the Western attitude to what's going on in Russia is a refusal to see that for example, this conflict is viewed in a Lincolnesque light, that Putin is a hero for restoring Russia to its "natural" state after three decades of humiliation, and some temporary pain is worth that?
is Putin's end-game
- regime change? OR
- grab the bread-bowl and proclaim "Lebenraum for Russian colonists" OR
- establish Ukraine as one more state in a newly expanded Russia? And just the first of a trajectory that will go on to Belarus (easy?) and then the middle-Asian Stan's (easy? hard? unwanted because they're not like us?)
Understanding Putin's motivations is essential to knowing how much of the physical infrastructure, and how much civilian pain, he is willing to inflict.
I read one person on DailyKos speculating that the issue was water, that Crimea is arid and Ukraine cut off water access to the peninsula. Who knows but there was something that tipped Putin into this crazy bold move beyond the general yearning to bring back the Empire.
Well, that's one tankie heard from (the person on Daily Kos speculating that it's all Ukraine' fault, not you).
You know, to my mind, even if Ukraine cut off water supplies to Crimea, (which I think is accurate), and even if this is why Putin is doing this (which seems highly speculative), that does not make this "Ukraine's fault". That's victim blaming. Remember how the Russians invaded and occupied Crimea? I'm pretty sure that wasn't something the Ukraine signed off on, either.
Irrigation water, not potable water.
Why do you think that empire-building was not Putin’s motivation?
Can't build that empire without water maybe?
Black Sea access wasn’t the issue. Russia had a lease on the naval base at Sevastopol that Ukraine was willing to renew. In addition, Russia spent a decade developing the port of Novorossiysk into a naval base.
Belarus is already a done deal; the Russian forces will never leave. Lukashenko wouldn’t last without them anyway.
Putin might convince himself that, despite their being NATO members, the alliance would not risk a defense of the small Baltic nations. But Finnish Karelia might be another target; the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs just issued a harsh threat to Finland and Sweden, who are moving closer to NATO. Best response to that was by a Finn who said ‘there are already tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in Finland. Near the border, six feet underground.’
Don't mess with Finland or Sweden, they bested the ROC in the Biathlon at the recent Winter Games, they know how to protect their homelands. Both have been participating in war games with NATO for some time now.
Can someone tell me what IANARE is an acronym for?
I Am Not A Real Endotherm.
ICBWOC.
I am not a Russian expert
Putin hasn't won all the time. He lost badly in trying to bring Ukraine back into his orbit peacefully. His factions in Ukraine were finally ousted in elections. He obviously resented this and resentment is a powerful motivation.
By the way, his talk about "Nazis" is not made up out of thin air. There was a fascistic faction, which the CIA apparently supported as a means of keeping the pro-Russians out of power. Putin, with his intelligence agencies, is probably better informed about this than the American media.
Note that there is a fascist faction in this country. Their mouthpiece is Tucker Carlson.
Oh god.
And that, folks, is why it's so hard to tell what's going on...
We have our set of deranged individuals (compromising much of the media and internet) who see a "fascist" in anyone they don't like for any reason. The same is undoubtedly true of Russia (and for that matter Ukraine) making it hard to tell exactly whose claims have at least some tenuous connection with reality, as opposed to being pure and total BS.
Evidence based assertion:
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33309669/tucker-carlson-writer-racism-fox-news-vacation/
That tells us that he works with (maybe employs, I don't know who controls what in that organization) idiots who are racists.
It doesn't actually tell us anything about fascism...
And that's my point. Fascist is being used in this context as a meaningless, content-free "you are a doody head" sort of word.
I think Kevin Drum likes Tukkker KKKarlson because Swansony is UNWOKE.
I think you're being opaque.
Not made up out of thin air, just vastly exaggerated. The Right Sector briefly held two seats in the Rada (parliament), none at present. Dmytro Yarosh, the co-founder but not affiliated with the group since 2015, is apparently an advisor to the military. Other than that, they are about as influential as skinheads in the US.
Do you have a citation on the alleged CIA support? It would be stupid, because Right Sector has no capacity to keep pro-Russian politicos out of power. Not that the CIA isn’t frequently doing stupid things.
Well, well, US intel reports that Russia is just fine with neo-Nazis who happen to be fighting alongside Russia and the separatists in the Donbas. https://news.yahoo.com/us-intelligence-report-details-indirect-russian-government-support-for-western-neo-fascist-groups-233831082.html
They ain't neonazis
There's actually an even more obvious reason -- he has a sizable nuclear deterrent. No other nuclear power can intervene against him, nor any non-nuclear NATO country, because the risk is too big. So to invade countries like Ukraine, he just has to have a bigger military than they do, which he does.
So, yeah, he's got a large (kick-ass may be overstating it) formidable military that can roll through smaller countries, and he has a nuclear deterrent to keep bigger countries out of it.
Elon Musk just said they switched on the Starlink satellites over Ukraine and are donating the connection equipment.
But Starlink is probably not the best solution for internet in Ukraine right now, as the uplink can be targeted,
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1497745011932286979
Kevin's point that Putin up until now has only fought tiny wars is extremely pertinent.
Russia has a population of 146,000,000.
Chechnya has 1.3 million
South Ossetia has a whopping 55 thousand
By way of contrast, the Ukraine has a population of 44,000,000. That is 30% of the population of Russia, and they have home field advantage. And more shipments of arms coming from the West every day
Zelensky won Ukraine's Dancing With the Stars in 2006,
https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1497768813860896770
It says 5,000 Russian soldiers have refused to deploy to Ukraine,
https://www.smobserved.com/story/2022/02/26/news/breaking-5000-russian-contract-servicemen-rioted-in-the-russian-city-of-belgorod-and-refused-to-go-to-fight-in-ukraine-reports-obozrevatel/6500.html
This is unconfirmed. Some Russian soldiers defected as they didn't want to kill Ukrainians.
https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-ambassador-says-russian-platoon-201138508.html
Putin keeps winning because he has the second or third most powerful military in the world, the other contender for Number 2 (China) is their friend, and the US at Number 1 lacks the stones to stand up to him.
FWTW: I have another large post of war video links awaiting moderation.
They may never come to pass...since my last one did not either.
Best Wishes, Traveller
The question is "can Putin get away with treating Ukrainians like Chechins?" Imagine that Washington, Oregon and Idaho were an independent nation, and they were establishing closer ties with Canada. Would brutal suppression work against a nation whose people had close ties with people living elsewhere in the US?
Obviously, the analogy is flawed -- Putin is a dictator. But lots of ethnic Russians have family in Ukraine, and a multiyear destructive war of attrition with heavy sanctions might not work.
The question is not why Putin wins wars but why he's losing this one against an outgunned and supposedly isolated smaller country.
The CW, which I think is probably right, is insanity.
I mean the CW answer is that Putin went crazy, not in this case that CW did even if it sometimes does.
We don’t know yet that he is losing, but many observers believe that Russia overestimated its advantage. One thing I found out only recently is that Ukraine has a 5:1 advantage in troop strength. Soviet/Russian doctrine has emphasized armor, and more recently air superiority, but in an age of Javelins and Stingers, when a two-person team can shoot down close air support craft, and destroy tanks, the Ukrainians may not be as disadvantaged as first thought.
I don’t know if he meets any DSM criteria, but only a madman would be threatening the use of nuclear weapons in this situation, against nations that have not committed any act of war against his. I hope the Russian general staff will refuse any order that, if followed, would make them the greatest war criminals in human history or prehistory.
"Having extremely limited and specific objectives is an excellent military strategy, and that's why Putin has won so many wars. But it says nothing about how good Russia's military is when it decides to fight a big war with unclear objectives. They are now trying to do approximately what we tried to do in Iraq, and only time will tell if they succeed."
Exactly. Little wars, little problems. Big wars, big problems.
And when it came to Georgia in 2008, it was the Georgians who launched an attack on South Ossetians by neocon stooge of a president at the time because he thought he would have U.S. backing. Thus no sympathy for them as Russians responded and kicked their asses out of South Ossetia.
As for Chechnya, there were no sanctions imposed on Russia nor were weapons, especially anti-aircraft or anti-tank weapons were given to the Chechnians because they were portrayed as Sunni Muslim extremists in league with Al Qaeda (and some of them were). Thus no sympathy for them.
Today, situation completely different. Ukraine is not a tiny little land mass and tiny little population. It's the second largest country in Europe with over 40 million people. Russian has invaded without provocation. Its leader Putin has expressed a desire to exterminate Ukraine as an independent state. This is a war of conquest period. The Ukrainians are being supplied by the West which there's little Putin can do about short World War III. he is being sanctioned in the most severe ways possible.
I found this gem on another website which I believe best explains what's being going on so far:
"Hell, some of the stuff I've seen it appears they're sending in armor and non-combatant vehicles without infantry support or proper recon and patrolling. The whole thing reeks of having planned an op on a timetable and probably under-resourcing and under-planning the logistical tail. Then initial resistance is stiffer than expected, especially in the urban hubs like Cherniviv and Kharkiv. So the Russians seem to have bypassed them to keep up with the op timetable, but without securing the vital road junctions, this further complicates an already bad logistical situation. So they try to run convoys along the bypass routes to keep up with leading elements of the advance, but because the infantry is stuck containing bypassed defenders, they are not securing those routes and leaving soft targets like the trucks completely vulnerable, which further fucks up the op timeline when gas and ammo go up in flames. They have seemingly taken similarly reckless gambles in this regard with respect to the airborne assaults, and then doubled down on them because they are vital to the rest of the op timetable. This could all be a terribly wrong analysis in while or in part, but it certainly seems like very very poor staff work on a subject that, even as just as exercise, the Russians should have been working on for well over a decade. It also has a strong whiff of everyone involved telling themselves what they and their superiors wanted to hear and then never questioning it, because rocking that boat was probably not a good career or life move."
The real issue missed is the collapse of Putin/Oligarchs psyops. Without money the con ends. For certain groups profiting from it, it's like withdrawing. Slow, build up of symptoms.
While Russia supports "movement conservatives" 2 -1 over "movement progressives" , which member of the afamed "squad" is a Russian asset???? Here is a hint, she is not from Mass
Come on fools, guess.
Video walks through an obliterated Russian armored column,
https://old.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/t2nnn2/bucha_5_km_from_kyiv_russian_troops_completely/
“I adamantly oppose risking the lives of boys from Louisiana and Alabama to make the Donbass safe for genderqueers and migrants.” Asshole pundit Rod Dreher.
See… this is where I think I don’t want to do anything to help people in Louisiana and Alabama. I won’t link to it. I’m sure you can find it if you want context. All I need to know if that I despise that fucker.
Considering he has gender queers all over the Republican party and they traffick migrants for the rich, words of a con mean little.