acrashb

Possibly, at least in the short term.  However, unlike containment of Germany through a punitive formal treaty the form projected on Russia would likely be better served by a version of the Cold War strategy of containment through alignment with everyone afraid of them - until we can negotiate with something rational inside Russia itself.
Like WW1 Germany, it may very well bring the crazies out of the woodwork; however, here we may have to get pulled into subversive active measures to ensure that they do not get "too crazy".  Also like pre-WW2, the bill is on us with respect to resolve - if that fails we could be back to this in 25 years.
Do not get me wrong, this is a mess that will need to be actively managed for at least a generation or two...that is what 24 Feb really meant.
 

So I encourage everyone to simmer down a bit - it is not like we are going to solve it here.  We all have opinions that are influenced by current events, and the heat is understandable.  I would offer that we perhaps take a step back and maybe take a bit more pragmatic view of this whole thing.
As far as I can see many seem to be weighing in on the strategic end state for Russia; however, this cannot be viewed in glorious isolation:
Western Strategic Endstate - this is a gross oversimplification because "The West" is comprised of many nations, all with their own interests; however, we can probably sum up the western desired end-state as a "manageable version of the former status quo".  In simpler terms, the west just wants the stability and order they have enjoyed for 30+ years so we can all stay rich - while at the same time allowing that wealth to slowly distribute globally.  Kind of a weird global trickle down theory of wealth but if you crunch the numbers it actually happened, although not nearly as fast or as equitable as a lot of people wanted.  The West wants to remain top dog globally and ensure that it holds the pen that writes the global order.
Ukrainian Endstate - beyond basic survival, Ukraine will be focused on security and integrity of its state.  It needs to be secure and free from what is happening right now in all its forms, and allowed to chart its own destiny as a collective entity within the international community.  I think that Ukraine in the EU and NATO is almost a certainty as elements of that end-state. In fact being within NATO is about the only guarantor of security for any nation neighboring Russia right now.  NATO is too big to fail and even Russia recognizes that triggering an Article 5 above recognized conflict thresholds is suicide. 
Russian Endstate - Only China and its growing global power is a viable challenger to the western bloc - and Russia already knows this, Putin's pipedream of somehow re-creating a third global power pole around Russia was weak-tea for domestic consumption.  So wither goes Russia?  
Well first off, I get the heat and anger...and it is well deserved; however, the idea that the endstate is the elimination of the Russian people, as a people, is a dead end.  We would break that Western Endstate if we endorsed a war of extermination in any form - so be angry, but western support will dry up the instant we get into the "destruction of Russia" territory.  Beyond the disruption to the global order this is just a bad idea for so many reasons, all centered on the fact that Russia currently holds roughly 6000 nuclear warheads. 
Now I know some will say - "Ya but they are all under tight control in concentrated areas" - well good for them; however, if Russia fractures into several smaller states or duchies or freaking warlord centric tribes we basically have the worst parts of Africa with the power to kill millions rolling around the floor.  Make all the arguments you like, we dodged a bullet in '91 and this would be a lot worse than that because we are not talking about dissolution into already semi-functioning former vassal states, we are talking new states and non-state entities.   For example, what happens when a break away semi-state decides that a 500 year old grudge is worth firing off nuclear weapons?  What happens when a non-state group decides that Ukraine is to blame?  Or the EU?  Or the US?  Way too many factors to control and recall my rant on relative rationality, it gets more relative the smaller the social structure you are looking at.
So no, I am sorry, but the break up of Russia or total dissolution is not on the grown ups table, and likely will not be unless we are talking WW3.  Too many of our interests are threatened by this eventuality, to the point that if it did happen we would likely be talking about the largest intervention operation in history to secure those nukes, and we are highly likely to miss some. 
The contraction of Russia, however, is definitely on the table.  As I wrote previously, Russia must be punished, be seen to be punished, and know it has been punished.  In the West, I frankly suspect that we do not care what government rules Russia - so long as it is rationale, reasonable and we can rely on it for normal business.  We do business and support dictators around the world right now (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and frankly could care less if another one rules Russia with an iron fist...so long as they stay in their lane and know their place.  So regime change is also very likely on the table, the US has already signaled this.  As is, the serious reduction in the Russian economy its ability to sustain military power is definitely on the table.  This is to ensure that it cannot threaten its neighbors for some time; time to build security guarantees with any and all neighboring nations that want them...why?  Because stability.
So what is the strategic endstate for Russia?  Contracted, Compressed, Constrained, and most importantly Contained...but not Shattered.  We need a semi-functioning state in the penalty-box, cooperating in war crimes trials and paying reparations, selling off its nuclear stockpile "in kind for destruction"...all the while still selling cheap energy to us and not China.  Russia's deep cultural dysfunction needs to be in a box where it can be happy at how miserable it is and leave the rest of us alone...not thrown up all over the geopolitical dance floor with a nuclear weapon in hand and mascara running down its tear soaked face while it blames us for "wanting to sleep with every other nation in the bar!!"

Or that a society is fundamentally flawed from inception with divisions amongst interests that no party has a desire to rationalize, so a dictatorship is the only way they can make it work.  The impulse to project that externally then is almost impossible to avoid as it is baked into the unstable social construct at a cultural level.

I was thinking same thing.  I want to politicians & media to start framing this war better.  I want to start hearing things like "serial mass murderer & dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin" become the norm.  He as murdered dozens of thousands now, crippled and maimed many times that, and wrecked the lives of literally millions.  He's totally disrupted the already damaged world economy.  He's worked to undermine democracy in the US and Europe.  
He's a murderous menace to the world but it needs to be framed so that it can start sinking in w folks that aren't paying much attention.

Civilian "Girkin" about RU gold industry
 

George W Bush calls out the Russian government for what they are trying to do.

This is a translation of that tweet thread?
Lot to unpack here and I am not sure I agree with all of it - for example we have no idea what the Russian losses around Severodonetsk have been, so “minimizing risk for gain” could be way off.
One thing I do not see on the Russian side is an actual strategy.  For example, if the strategic end is to “take the Donbas and declare victory”, what is the Russian plan for the very real possibility that Ukraine won’t let them hold it?  Russian strategy has been and continues to be in this war, entirely in isolation of reality and largely based on hope.
Do they hope Ukraine has had enough and taps out?  Do they somehow figure they can call the Donbas “mother Russia” and go nuclear?  The reality is that it is taking just about everything the Russian have to take very small chunks of ground right now.  I do not think they will be able to actually take the Donbas, Luhansk maybe, but not Donetsk; however, even if they do will they have broken the will of Ukraine to resist?  The West?
The West cannot not allow Russia to gain from this in anyway.  Russia at a min must be economically punished, back to 2014 lines or better and with new internal power structure, one we can actually negotiate with, in place. If we cannot do that the western global order has failed…and China is watching. 
Ukraine has all the hallmarks of a nation that has embraced a war to the point it is now part of their culture.  You do not defeat a nation in this state by taking a few hundred square kilometres of real estate, you would need to break their backs and shatter that unity or completely exhaust them.   So long as the West keeps supporting, Ukraine will keep fighting…and we have reason to keep supporting.  
So back to Russian long game…and we have been over this.  How do they defend what they have taken while Ukraine continues to mobilize and modernize, and they are heading in the opposite direction?  How does Russian defend an extremely long front without enough troops against a very motivated opponent with increasing capability?  Beyond that, how does Russia renormalize to remove sanctions, scare Sweden and Finland away from NATO, get NATO national to not spend trillions on defence and wipe humanities memory of their complete gong show so they can re-emerge as a great power?
Short answer is that they cannot.  At best, the Russian government may convince or cow enough domestic population in order to stay in power and basically get to sit at the same lunch table as North Korea for the next 25 years.  That or we fail and the global order and all it pays for is at risk - and for the record, this is what happens when you let things slide.  We failed in 2014 and here we are, we fail again and what does 2030 look like?

Dang, the guy wrote a book in Tweet form. Well worth reading though, many thanks.

Where is the throwing up emoji on this thing…?🤢🤮  Found it.

reported.  It is Sunday so hopefully he's finished lunch before having to deal with this.

Going to try using some facts to justify that statement?  Nuclear proliferation is a big threshold to cross.

yeah unfortunately he survived the fall.  Guess even Satan didn't want him

Their drill and locker layouts will be up to scratch at least 😉

German fatigues will bestow +10 on the engineering skills of the wearer. 

Veteran war correspondent Aris Roussinos spent some time with the 'Right Sector' forces in the Horlivka sector, Donetsk front.
https://unherd.com/2022/06/on-the-frontline-with-the-right-sector-militia/
There's a lot of worthy political ('no, we aren't nazis') discussion and human interest which I won't summarize here, but also some military bits:
The steppe landscape of the Donbas region is rippled with folds and gullies; the copses of tall oaks that have taken root in these shallow nooks provide perfect cover for guerrilla war, an archipelago in the endless sea of grass and ripening wheat.
The mortar team have been concealed here for two days, in a tiny salient almost fully encircled by the Russian advance.....
“Our Intelligence found a location with Russian mortar positions and an ammunition dump.... With a quadcopter you can find a position to hit in 20 minutes — but once we fire, it will only take the Russians a couple of minutes to find our position and return fire.”
...the 120mm mortar belches out a dozen rounds in bursts of flame, as the quadcopter operator sits cross-legged in the grass, ordering them to adjust their elevation.... Then it’s time to go: we race to the SUV and drive off at high speed....
The following day, Pedro, who has an ongoing social media feud with mercenaries from the far-Right Russian Wagner Group on the other side of the frontline, in which they threaten to kill each other, would show drone footage of the Russian soldiers in their trenches getting obliterated by his mortar fire on his phone, overlaid with a death metal soundtrack and cry-laughter emojis. Welcome to war in 2022.
"Athena"

Brought up in a Russian-speaking Catholic family in Vinnytsia, the daughter of a surgeon, Athena was a poet and English translator before the war, with a sideline writing essays for American college students. She first volunteered for frontline service at age 18, straight from university....A child prodigy, she was a contestant on the Russian version of Britain’s Brainiest Kid aged 11.
Walking through the long grass and undergrowth of the semi-abandoned village to the local shops with the heavily armed soldiers, to buy energy drinks and ice creams from a pointedly unfriendly shopkeeper, Athena highlighted the eerie atmosphere of dereliction. “It’s weird out here, it’s almost as bad as Detroit,” she said with wonder — Athena had spent a year in a Michigan high school as an exchange student. All from elsewhere in Ukraine, they were fighting among a local population whose loyalty to the nation was not guaranteed, and found it a strange and frustrating experience.
 

Ok, let's try this one on.  I am guessing the "pretty smart" folks you are talking to all went to some graduate strategic studies schools where Colin Gray is their god...maybe with some SAMS folks tossed in for flavor.  Well "I ain't no senators son" so I will give it a "best-shot".
I don't think escalation dominance exists as a viable or workable strategic military concept, or strategy - at least not in the modern era.  It is a "pipe dream" a unicorn with a 38 inch bust....weird, slightly erotic and pure fantasy.
So if I recall the term basically describes overmatch.  My own thoughts on those metrics: 
Parity - all things being equal, decision spaces are symmetrical and outcomes determined by chance as much as anything else.
Asymmetry - Your opponent is in a state of dilemma with respect to decision space and are forced to pick the "best bad".
Overmatch - You opponents decision space is irrelevant because all outcomes are the same.
That is a scale/spectrum with lots of sliding distance but to my mind lays out the strategic states with respect to conflict.  In my own terms, if warfare is vision/certainty, communication, negotiation and sacrifice - you basically take the opponents voice away by leave zero negotiation space and driving sacrifice to infinity.
So in this case we would be talking about the Russians being able to create a condition of strategic overmatch on the Ukraine...and this is simply not attainable.  Why?  Well:
- Russian strategic escalation is bounded and restricted externally by the West.  If the West/US had stayed neutral, or did not exist, Russia would have likely escalated already.  They talk a good game but they know that escalation against the West is a dead-hand game of chicken that no one wins and it is directly connected to the current war in the Ukraine.  The only way Russia achieves dominance in this area is if we fail to act.
- Conventional escalation in the form of a formal declaration of war and full mobilization is restricted internally and externally.  Internally, there is domestic pressure - and it is real, as Russia is tying itself in knots to not mobilize while pulling on every other resource it can...so bounded.  Then there is the possible Western reaction to full Russian mobilization..."Ok, Vlad, you want to raise a million man army...how about we give Ukraine 400 HIMARs?"  That is an external bounding; this war is not happening in an isolated bubble.
- Unconventional escalation.  Here the gun is pointing the other direction.  Ukraine could escalate unconventional warfare and the West could as well. This has all sorts of options from leveraging power brokers in the back field, to sabotage, to subversive warfare, to cyber/information.  These things are likely already happening but the escalation ladder is not in Russia's favour in this space, why?  Because they did the one thing they absolutely should not have done in thru this war - unify people against them while dividing their own.  Unconventional war relies a lot on internal divisions and this war has narrowed them in the West while widening them in the Russian sphere.
Finally, as to the term in the modern era...impossible. Why? Because tangled and relative rationality.  The USA has the largest military in the history of humanity - more destructive power than Ghengis or Alexander even taking into account population differences.  And the US has never been able to achieve "escalation dominance" in the modern age.  Terrorism and terrorist groups demonstrated this in spades.  In a modern entangled world completely stopping asymmetric escalation in other dimensions is impossible - it is the superpower dilemma of the 21st century; the only way to preserve the world is to destroy it.  
During GWOT it was AQ/ISIL that "escalated" and threatened to escalate all the way up to WMDs, if they could.  All the US hard power was completely dislocated by a tiny group that was using an idea, the internet and a shoe string budget to make attacks on the US homeland.  After a lot of effort we regained parity and even asymmetry against terror groups but we never achieved escalation dominance and it was dangerous to even think we could deter them through this strategy.'
My problem with Gray (and Clausewitz for that matter) is that these strategies always assume a rational actor and we know that in war those are hard to find.  Rationality becomes relative very quickly.  So the idea of - shooting each other when we have already jumped off the building together ("I will die but you first!") - makes perfect sense locally even though it looks insane to an outside observer.  Escalation dominance does not work on a suicide bomber, never will; they are already at the sacrifice infinity point.  Not saying Ukraine is suicidal; however, if driven to it, Ukraine will fight and escalate well past an outside rationality point - even if it means massive losses...because "it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees" short-circuits the foundational logic of escalation dominance as a strategic theory...and it is in play.
So what?  Well we have an escalation system in parity by my eyes.  Russia is bounded as I described but Ukraine is as well.  The west will only tolerate so much - for example Ukrainian terror groups active in Russia killing civilians is not going to fly with us.  Nor would giving Ukraine nuclear weapons as we fear if things get desperate enough for them to use them.  Ukraine has no mobilization escalation bounding, they are already there.  Conventionally we are slowly negotiating what strikes into Russia look like, but it is not zero.
Finally, I suspect what we are really talking about is comparative strategic options spaces.  And here Ukraine does not need to escalate, they need only sustain theirs, while Russia is doing a glorious job of collapsing their own.  There will come a point when Russia starts to think about irrational escalation as those options spaces collapse, even in the face of Western power...the trick is knowing where that point is and ensuring we get off this ride first.  I suspect it is the Russian land border...Crimea is a question mark.  But one second to midnight at a time....

Non-professional?!  Bil,..ouch.  Unpaid maybe.  There is a lot of professionals from a lot of fields here, it is what makes this whole thing work in my opinion.  That and "the professionals" really haven't done much better as far as I can tell...and I am being kind in some examples.

This is the first time I've seen a thread with over 1 million views.  Amazing conversation, amazing and insightful contributors.  Must be the best non-professional source on the war online.

Slowing is one aspect but I also think they can influence the RA OODA loop to make bad decisions quicker.  I also suspect, as you note, this has been what has been happening at the strategic level all along...in fact if the Russian political OODA loop slowed down it may perform better.
Doing it on the battlefield may be killing the right leaders and leaving the impulsive and weak ones in place.  This is an extension of where we wound up in COIN/GWOT...leave the idiots in charge, take out the talent.  Otherwise you risk positive Darwinian pressure on your opponent, when you want negative pressure.
I also suspect this is where cyber could come in.  If you could corrupt the data, then the Russian system has to work harder through it to create knowledge.  Or conversely shape it so the Russian see what they want to see and act impulsively on it - Bil H does this to me all the time.
The Russians do have a history of being able to learn quickly in war, especially when they are losing - thing is, I do not think they are willing to admit or recognize that they are losing.
I do suspect the Russians are close to burning out.  We have been calling it for some time but the signs were there before all this and after nearly two months of intense combat the Russian forces have to seriously be eroded.  There are signs along the front that in other areas they have already moved to operational defence, they are only able to really push in that one sector.  The key indicator will be if Putin declares "victory" if they can clear the Luhansk Oblast.  I do not see them having the gas to take all of Donetsk as well, unless the UA suffers a major set-back.

We can reasonably, from an operations perspective, say "crazy" and "insane" but to (mis)quote another famous Russian leader, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

It's only really crazy if it somehow leads to an overall collapse or general failure of the (recast) objectives, which one could see if the concentration was leveraged by UA in counter-battery or the like (resulting in unsustainable losses of the concentrated RA artillery), but it appears that the RA is learning / adapting and that UA drone ops used to support destruction of RA artillery are waning in the main effort area due to more effective / more concentrated Russian air defense.
The arty concentration doesn't appear to be hurting the RA in other areas; they aren't advancing elsewhere but aren't materially losing ground either.
It seems to me that the RA is finally playing to its strengths, one of which is arty, and if inching gets the job done, then Putin gets harder to dislodge, like a tick burrowing in a little at a time.
Not trying to be argumentative, just thinking that when we use descriptions like the above we tend to underestimate how much fight is left in an opponent, leading to complacency.  
 
 

To clarify, I mean crazy by modern mechanized warfare standards.  900 guns on a 30 km frontage is WWI levels of concentration. How successful it will be versus the cost is still an outstanding question; however, based on the pretty slow Russian grind I am not entirely thinking it is doing the trick.  
It is the fact that the Russian had to do that level of concentration in order to even get moving on the offensive that is telling.  It is how the RA had to adapt that is the interesting bit.

We can reasonably, from an operations perspective, say "crazy" and "insane" but to (mis)quote another famous Russian leader, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

It's only really crazy if it somehow leads to an overall collapse or general failure of the (recast) objectives, which one could see if the concentration was leveraged by UA in counter-battery or the like (resulting in unsustainable losses of the concentrated RA artillery), but it appears that the RA is learning / adapting and that UA drone ops used to support destruction of RA artillery are waning in the main effort area due to more effective / more concentrated Russian air defense.
The arty concentration doesn't appear to be hurting the RA in other areas; they aren't advancing elsewhere but aren't materially losing ground either.
It seems to me that the RA is finally playing to its strengths, one of which is arty, and if inching gets the job done, then Putin gets harder to dislodge, like a tick burrowing in a little at a time.
Not trying to be argumentative, just thinking that when we use descriptions like the above we tend to underestimate how much fight is left in an opponent, leading to complacency.  
 
 

We can reasonably, from an operations perspective, say "crazy" and "insane" but to (mis)quote another famous Russian leader, "Quantity has a quality all its own".

It's only really crazy if it somehow leads to an overall collapse or general failure of the (recast) objectives, which one could see if the concentration was leveraged by UA in counter-battery or the like (resulting in unsustainable losses of the concentrated RA artillery), but it appears that the RA is learning / adapting and that UA drone ops used to support destruction of RA artillery are waning in the main effort area due to more effective / more concentrated Russian air defense.
The arty concentration doesn't appear to be hurting the RA in other areas; they aren't advancing elsewhere but aren't materially losing ground either.
It seems to me that the RA is finally playing to its strengths, one of which is arty, and if inching gets the job done, then Putin gets harder to dislodge, like a tick burrowing in a little at a time.
Not trying to be argumentative, just thinking that when we use descriptions like the above we tend to underestimate how much fight is left in an opponent, leading to complacency.  
 
 

Doctrine is doctrine - but if you want to get into it...
If you look past the tactical vignette the dilemma is the same as it has been for ages; however, how it is delivered is different.  Those "recce dudes" now have eyes in the sky that stretch for kms in all directions and are linked to quick response (and pretty accurate) indirect fire.  So the Russian forces can either stay dispersed and hidden - and have their combat power dislocated and/or static.  Or they concentrate that combat power to manoeuvre, get spotted at much longer ranges and get hammered - Finding beats flanking.
Do that in enough locations across the Russian positions (and indications are that is exactly what the UA was doing - this account sounds very familiar), and now they can because "eyes", and you have attrition across the Russian system, which can (and perhaps did) cause collapse.  It is a form of attrition-to-manoeuvre, as opposed to the other way around, which we have been slavishly adhering to like a religion for years.
Infiltration - even if by UAVs - and attrition is not a "mere nuisance", over time it erodes the physical and moral elements of combat power (upscale it and you can strain the social as well).  Which means more rotations of units to and from the front, which leads to more friction.  
The only way out of the box appears to concentrate your mass to such a ridiculous extent that you overcome the artillery through sheer bloody-mindedness - a Zap Brannigan strategy if there ever was one.  It will gain you a few kms of ground on a narrow front but you will pay dearly for it.  The force ratios the Russian are having to employ to do this are crazy - e.g. Severodonetsk - 900 guns to cover a 30 km frontage is just insane...and that got them to inching.  The old MRD had, by my count, about 216 tubes and was expected to cover off 20 kms ( see: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf, pg 4-39, and: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf, pg 5-19).  Even with a second MRD in depth, that is about double the gun density for frontage being employed compared to what the Soviets had planned on to invade West Germany. 
So What?  Well if that is what it takes to create enough mass to attack in a box while staying secure from those "nuisances", then I would say that the combined arms tactics being described are pretty damned effective.

Yes it is.
combined arms – The synchronized and simultaneous application of arms to achieve an effect greater than if
each arm was used separately or sequentially. (ADP 3-0)
combined arms team – (DOD) The full integration and application of two or more arms or elements of one Service into an operation. (JP 3-18) Referenced in ATP 3-01.81.
https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN31809-FM_1-02.1-000-WEB-1.pdf
 
Further it is also the more likely 21st century version - infantry, unmanned systems and indirect fires.