acrashb

Putting aside Boris Johnson’s own political motives, I think his appearance strolling the streets of Kyiv with President Zelensky projected a powerful message of strength and courage.  This beacon of hope, Kyiv, which fiercely resisted and drove back the dark forces of Sauron, is being shown to the world as still being free.
But the flame of freedom needs to remain fuelled; I’m glad the Zelensky was not left empty handed.  I thank the Peoples of the UK for their support of Ukraine.
It is fitting for the Brit’s to up the aid ante by now offering the means to project counter sea-denial operations.  No longer will the Russians operate on the Black Sea with impunity!
This expands their ability to cause Ivan some pain.  Not only Russia’s naval forces but couldn’t merchant traffic even be called fair game.
Fitting too that it be done by a NATO member with their own sovereign nuclear force.
The frog continues to slowly boil.
 

I really like this guy but on this one I have to diverge on his analysis somewhat.  I think he has got a lot right in this video.  I do disagree on his assessment of the Russian military around the 30 min mark but that is because I do not think he fully sees the distance that it needs to go to "re-tool" in order to fight the war it is in, due in large part to how Ukraine is prosecuting it...but we can save that for another day and frankly Steve has already covered a lot of this.
I will say that I totally agree with his caveats and cautions going into this sort of discussion on "who is winning".  However, Perun is employing technical metrics largely based on strength and their application in achieving stated political objectives but misses the realities of a "collision in motion".  As I noted, political objectives can shift (they did) based on will to sacrifice and desired end state, this is the continual negotiation I was speaking of.  When a war ends, people can argue forever (and will) who won based on the sorts of political objectives lens Perun is employing; however, in the middle of it one needs a somewhat more nuanced set of metrics, in my opinion.  For argument sake I will present four that I teach:
Options, Decisions, Power (Will, Strength, Relationships), Negotiating Position.
Options.  There has not been a war in history that I can think of where the losing sides options did not compress, eventually to a single one - loss, and the winning sides options were either sustained or expanded.  Pick a war, any war and trace the strategic options spaces of each side and you will see this trend.  In this one, again "in motion", it looks very much like Russian strategic options have continued to collapse, to the point they had to re-write political objectives, while Ukraine has sustained and in many cases expanded theirs particularly in the form of further mobilization, offensive action, an ability to hit Russian SLOCs and even prosecute targets within Russia (allegedly).  Strategically Ukraine is options healthy, it can give ground and then re-take it.  Politically, they have already begun to re-design what security guarantees mean: all healthy options.  Russia has been the inverse on almost every option space metric.  So what?  Well unless Russia can regain strategic options spaces while compressing Ukrainian ones, this war is not going in their favour.
Decisions.  So far there have been, by my count, 3-4 strategic decisions made in this war so far.  1) The quick 72 war - decided very quickly against Russia, 2) The move to besieging Kyiv and major urban centers -and with the exception of Mariupol pretty much has failed, 3) The collapse of the Russian Northern front - a decisive withdrawal that many were somewhat skeptically waiting for, and 4) The decisive proof of Russian war crimes in re-captured areas - changed the tenor and nature of this fight, including its end-states while galvanizing western support.   None of these have gone in Russia's favor.  This is not to say Russia cannot achieve a decisive outcome in the future but in war you live with the decisions of the past and at least so far they are not pointing to Russian "winning".
Power.  A very complex piece that encompasses a lot of components.  Most focus on Strength - the ability to communicate effects but I will focus on Will and Relationships.  Here Ukraine has the upper hand significantly and the trend is accelerating - time is on the Ukrainian side with respect to Will and Relationships.  Ukrainian Will has further steeled in the last 40 days while Russian Will is stressed.  Relationships do not need much elaboration but it is easy to see Russia's relationship position in comparison to Ukraine.  The reality is that one can have enormous Strength but if you do not have the Will or Relationships to bring it to bear that Strength is worth much less. When it comes to Power, I am arguing that Ukrainian power relevant and employable in this war is rising while Russia's is waning.
Negotiating Position.  This one is kind of a summary of all of the above.  Who has the stronger negotiation position both internally (ie. with itself) and externally?   Negotiation position is reliant on Power but it is also highly effected by Options and Decisions.  I would argue that right now Ukraine has the stronger position.  There are indications of this in how Ukraine's negotiation narrative has changed with Russia and how the tenor within Ukraine itself amongst the population has changed.  Russia's position is again the inverse, its negotiating position continues to weaken both externally through violence and threat of violence and, more importantly, internally - hence why all the lies.
So when I look at all four metrics, to my eyes this war is not going in Russia's direction.  These are the things it needs to be "winning" at in order to achieve its objectives (i.e. The Means) and it is not at least as far as I can see.  This does not mean that this thing is hard-wired but it points to a position where Russia must climb an ever increasingly steep hill while Ukraine need only stand on top of it.

Here is a lengthy but comprehensive review.  Haven't listened to all of it, but nothing unreasonable in the opening bits:
 

China is the next enemy. First finish Russia.

Wow, hard to believe that was only 40 days ago.  I would caveat that this is a descriptive theory, not a prescriptive one.  Descriptive theories assist in orientation and allow us to better understand "what we are seeing", while prescriptive ones offer "rules for successful execution" and offer some predictive qualities (e.g. Clausewitzian attacking centers of gravity).  I have never really bought off on prescriptive military theory to be honest as it either has to be so broad as to be nearly inapplicable (see Clausewitz), or it is narrow and misses large pieces of the picture.  Descriptive theories provide a better observation reference but are not designed to predict or prescribe, we are left to figure that out on our own.
So 40 days later and what have we seen?  Well obviously both sides have been communicating across multiple mediums and in many ways.  Violence is the most obvious but we can see there are many forms of communication beyond violence in this war, narratives for example.  Even the atrocities committed by the Russian forces is a form of communication, one that I think the world has heard and understood very clearly; this will not be a clean war, because clean wars do not exist.  I think we forgot that fighting in far flung parts of the world but this one is hammering it home very clearly.  
What is interesting is the negotiation.  This is more than between the parties engaged in the war.  It is between a party and itself, and the reality it perceives in front of it; we negotiate with the future in war, an extremely uncertain future.  In the last 40 days the level of negotiation by all parties has been fascinating. 
We have watch the Russians have to renegotiate their entire envisioned end-state as the northern operational axis have collapsed.  We have watched the Russian political level negotiate with its own people by building a pretty weak argument resting on a ever increasing lattice work of falsehoods and lies.  Putin had better hope that Stalin was right about the size of the lie because even though the "first casualty of war..." and all that, the reality is that there is constant negotiation between the political and the people (Clausewitz nailed that one) but it is a highly bounded one.  As has been mentioned, culture plays no small part in framing that ongoing negotiation; however, in Russia's case the framework of lies keeps getting larger and larger, it is  matter of time before a counter-narrative starts gaining traction, much like it did during the Soviet-Afghan War.  So while Putin has had to re-negotiate his reality, he now has to try and re-negotiate that reality with an entire nation as more and more Russian soldiers "go missing" or come home in boxes.  Again, descriptive theory but where I come from this is not a particularly strong strategic position, particularly when you might need to mobilize your nation in order to pull off a weak draw by this point.
The Ukrainian negotiations have been no less startling.  I think there was a level of shock in those first four days and I would not be surprised if the Ukrainian government had a much more open position to ending this thing.  Now they have completely re-negotiated their reality and envisioned end-state:
From ISW: "Ukraine will not resume negotiations with Russia until Ukrainian and guarantor state negotiators finalize meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine. Russian atrocities in Ukraine and Kremlin efforts to falsely blame Ukraine for these atrocities have reduced the willingness of the Ukrainian government and society to reach a peace agreement less than total Russian defeat"
This is not the negotiation position of warring party that is worried about losing that certainty I spoke of initially, in fact it has been reinforced.  Further, the Ukrainian government is not negotiating with its people from a position of weakness, it is one of extreme strength.  The Ukrainian people are galvanized more now, than they were back on Feb 28th.  They have sacrificed thousands and now the Russian atrocities are coming to better light they know that they are "all in" for the next decade if need be.  Further, based on what I have seen on social media, this resistance has taken root at a cultural level and I cannot describe how powerful (and dangerous for the Russians) that is.  The fact that killing Russians is being elevated to a near religious calling that will likely be taught to grandchildren is about as bad as it can get for an invader, trust me we found that out the hard way in Afghanistan.  
So what?  Well the communication will continue, now in context of re-negotiated end-states.  Negotiation is continuous and is constantly in contact with the other four elements.  What I am looking for are more signals of what that negotiation looks like.  I will say that it is never simple, it has twists and turns the longer this thing carries on.  Signals of negotiation on all levels, the texture and nature of those negotiations, what influences negotiation?  These are all things I will be tracking.
Finally on sacrifice.  Both sides have sacrificed and will continue to do so, the real question of Will comes down to "how much?"  Here Ukraine clearly has got miles of depth before they will accept "too much", particularly as more civilian massacres turn up; what is the point of "tapping out" when they are going to kill you anyway?  The Russians nearly the opposite position: "how close to the edge are they?"  I do not believe for a second that Russia has signed up for a total war but they really close to an unintended one.  The level of sacrifice to win it could soar to the hundreds of thousands as this rate, is Russia willing to pay that blood price?  The economic damage and diplomatic damage are heading to total but it will take months for them to see that in full, let alone believe it.  But the continued bleeding for a few meters of dirt in Ukraine, all projected across social media and on the internet forever is a growing cost that I am not sure the Russian government can negotiate its way out of.
Finally the West.  Well we also have to come to terms with the future and it is not the one we thought it was going to be.  We continue to communicate through proxy means, and negotiate militarily through proxy, while directly through economic and diplomacy means; however, we still are not "getting it":
https://www.reuters.com/world/un-vote-suspending-russia-human-rights-council-over-ukraine-2022-04-07/
These mechanism matter to us, not Russia or other powers like China that want to re-write the rules.  This is a laughable gesture by a creaking global order that has its head so far up its own...well you get the idea.  I have said it before, this war is terrible and costly, they all are and I don't want to downplay that, but it is the beginning of an era of "power being power" we are entering into, a Season of Mars (not Venus) that has been a long time coming.  That is bigger than this war, it has implications for the next ones.  This elevates this whole thing beyond "a local border disagreement" -as some have posited- and towards a strategic "black swan" or shock.  The implications span from the tactical through to the geopolitical, that kind of thing is rare.

Following up on that, while I would normally class The Sun as sabre-rattlers etc. this piece is a moving and I think neutral (if you can be) view of a particular location:
 

That is incredible. To discover your loved one is dead on the internet instead of from an army officier. 

Another great video, I think it is very telling that even if we limit our measuring stick and only take Russias publicly statet objectives -- they are losing just as much.

Please can we get more likes? pretty please?

Now this is a veteran unit with the kinks worked out, and having seen what Russia did north of Kyiv, these guys are long weekend of rest away from showing up in the Donbas with DEEP conviction that the only good Russian is a $&$&$%%*** Russian. 
Another quick number on how hard it is to scale up production in a hurry in the modern world. Higher grade semiconductors spend four months in actual fabrication. That is after you have grown and sliced the silicon to grow them on. Both of those activities are their own ultra specialist industries. So in the unlikely event the Chinese have prepared wafers sitting around,  it would be four months before the first chip came out the other end of the FAB to be incorporated in a tank, or a missile. Furthermore there are essentially no surplus wafers or FAB capacity anywhere on planet earth, they have still not caught up with the supply chain issues and demand shock from the pandemic. So for any significant capacity to be diverted to the Russian military XI would have to force a Chinese manufacturer to abrogate an existing contract. This isn't impossible, but it isn't trivial either. Doubly so since the U.S. would hammer any Chinese manufacturer that got caught building stuff for Russia with secondary sanctions that would make it impossible for them to ever buy anymore semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
 
Ok, it was long number....

Here is a lengthy but comprehensive review.  Haven't listened to all of it, but nothing unreasonable in the opening bits:
 

Here is a lengthy but comprehensive review.  Haven't listened to all of it, but nothing unreasonable in the opening bits:
 

Modern production can be insanely efficient, and fast once it is set up. Setting it up take a LONG time. Exhibit A is two years into the pandemic I still can't get the bicycle I want, it is expensive, and particular, but two years on from the pandemic induced demand shock they still can't make enough of them. That is with me standing at the counter saying take my money. Now Putin may about to try harder, like if this line isn't running in six months I will shoot your whole family hard. But he is also in a vastly bigger hole. Russia needs to ramp things up by a factor of ten or more in many areas, and they have never owned much of the supply chain, or the underlying manufacturing technologies. Russia couldn't get a new plant up for thermal imagers built in two years before the sanctions, now it isn't clear they can do it at all. I am honestly not sure where China is on some of this stuff. But it is some indication that until very recently, if not still, they were relying on Russian jet engines. With the U.S. congress waving fistfuls of dollars at them Intel says they might have some new U.S. semiconductor production in the U.S. in 2025

While I have no particular axe to grind over this, I don't think this thread is the place for such 'beliefs'?  I also hope your concluding belief is not actually correct.
Anyway, back to Ukraine if possible...

I'd love to know just how much of a M1 Abrams is dependent on non-democratic countries...if at all.

'fully mobilized' affects funding and manpower, but I think the inter-connectedness of supply chains, in a sanctioned entity like Russia, is the issue here.  For a WW2 MBT you needed steel, rubber, copper, various sundries, crude oil (for fuel, lubricants and hydraulic fluids), sand (optics) and nitrogen and cellulose for the exploding parts.  Maybe you would get fancy and have a radio.  All of that could be found in one regular country.

A modern MBT is an entirely different (steel) beast.

All very fair points. My angle, to clarify, was more along the lines of the Come As You Are notes earlier...but my post veered off and your own points are perfectly valid in that context.
But ref the difficulty of making modern weapons in non-wartime economies, vs WW2 weapons in fully mobilized societies, there's no real equivalence, I feel.
Even so, I think a modern economy spun up to full wartime mobilization could produce modern gear at a crazy rate, far outstripping the WW2 pace.

and to think the Sherman got a bad rap.

Everyone says this like Ukraine has an unlimited number of artillery pieces and ammunition.  For all I know that's correct, but it seems to me that, in the excitement about Switchblades, Javelins and NLAWS, no-one is talking about resupply of arty ammunition.
Does anyone have an analysis of Ukraine's stocks and usage rates?  I presume that can't be manufacturing much right now, so it's whatever was in stock.

After explosions on several ammunition storages in 2016-2018 we have some... not a lack, of course, but significant reduction of some types of ammunition. As if this is first of all 152 mm shells for Giatsynt heavy guns (2B36, 2S5) and 270 mm rockets for Uragan MLRS. But this is on the level of forum talks...  

1 You can't make modern weapons from Church bells.
2 Russia has lost plenty of wars.  This Napoleon/Hitler view is hardly the only story of Russian wars.. and in both those Russia got enormous aid from its allies.  China isn't so forthcoming.
You think Russia is stubborn?  I think Ukraine is teaching them a whole other lesson in stubborn.

looks at pic... starts crying because it has curved roads...

Because it (almost inevitably) appeared elsewhere:

No doubt about it, something is happening to Russian mass.  We do not know if it is the Russians getting in their own way or as a result of UA actions, maybe a combination of both.  The standard belief is that the Battle Group, Battalion Task Force or BTG are supposed to the smallest tactically self-sufficient blocks of conventional mass.  They are baked into a Bde-like structure and are designed to be able to run and burn for days, pointed at operational objectives. 
Combat Teams/Coy TGs are supposed to operate within that Battalion construct.  It is very rare to see one operate independently (e.g. Bridge Demolition Guard).  Since very early on in this war, we saw reports of Russians seemingly unable to fight a BTG as designed...why?  It is too easy to say "well the Russians suck", so I immediately distrust it.  The Russians have not set a high water mark of military campaigning, that much is true but how much is their fault and how much was inflicted on them by the UA?  More importantly has the UA approach essentially broken the Russian one?
I see a lot of debate on "the future of the tank?" with a lot of people in armored uniforms and tank books saying "no way" [aside: including JasonC, which does not surprise me at all as we rarely have agreed on anything].  I also see people leaning way too far, too fast with the "tank is dead...long live the infantry!!"  This is not the important question.  The important question is "what just happened to conventional warfare?"  Not just the tank, but all of it?  The entire system of mass, which looks a lot like the ones we use, just failed gloriously when by all metrics it should not have.
This odd de-aggregation of mass at the front end of Russian advances is just another symptom.  We saw Russian tanks going unsupported almost everywhere, while infantry also appear to be unsupported.  Unless the UA invented a "forget combined arms" magic ray gun, one has to wonder why this is happening.  I am not sure if it is friction caused by a combination of UAVs and long range smart ATGMs that may have insane Pk rates.  Or is it a result of information superiority leading to Russians having to adopt ad hoc tactical approaches?  Or is it a result of attrition of Russian frontline troops?
But one thing is certain, Russian mass is not working.  What happens next in the south appears to be building to a final showdown between traditional conventional mass and whatever the UA has come up with.  I suspect the Russians will double down on mass but try to build it up in a WW1 "one last push" thing.  It is going to meet the UA hybrid approach, which also includes UA conventional at certain points and spaces.  The Russian mass will be blunted, slowed and stalled complete with logistics/LOC strikes, but what we don't know is who will break first.  

I am an offender here, but I agree. Although I doubt that's going to change much. Just keep scrolling.....